Marker assisted introgression of bacterial blight resistance in Ranjit, a popular rice variety of Assam

Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB) is one of the devastating diseases of rice. BLB causes grain yield reduction upto the tune of 20-50%. Xanthomonas oryxae pv.oryzae is the pathogen responsible for BLB. In this study, the necessary BLB resistance genes was identified to be deployed in the popular variety, Ranjit. The genes required are xa13 and Xa21. For these, the donor variety Improved Samba Mahsuri (ISM) was selected as there is similarity in genealogy with the variety Ranjit. By using ISM we can reduce the linkage drag. Further, identified the marker xa13 promoter for the gene xa13 and pTA248 for the gene Xa21 for foreground selection. Screened 150 markers for background selection and identified 61 polymorphic markers to carry out background selection.