Bakanae disease, caused by Gibberella fujikuroi, is one of the most devastating diseases threatening rice production in Korea. In recent years, the incidence of bakanae disease became alarming due to the mechanical transplanting practice where the spread of bakanae can be amplified during accelerating seeds growth, due to the use of seeding boxes. The development of resistant rice cultivars could be the primary and effective method for controlling bakanae disease. However, the effects of individual resistance genes are relatively small. Therefore, pyramiding of bakane R genes in rice breeding is a promising strategy having a high potential to mitigate the advert effects of bakanae disease. This study employed a gene pyramiding approach to develop bakanae disease resistant rice lines carrying qBK1, qFfR1 introduced from rice line MY299BK and cv. Nampyeong, respectively. The MY299BK carries qBK1 introduced from cv. Shingwang, which was found to have a high resistance compare to Nampyeong. In addition, the pyramiding effect of the qBK1 and qFfR1 resistance genes were investigated, and the presence or absence of these genes helped us investigate their interaction through bioassay method and MAS. Furthermore, the distribution of resistance in the population showed a biased distribution toward resistance in the F6:7 populutions. However, we could not confirm the accumulation effect of the resistance gene, but the difference between the two genes by the SN2 marker was confirmed. Therefore, the qBK1 gene harbored by MY299BK appears to be different from the qFfR1 carried by Nampyeong, suspected to possess a different bakanae disease resistant gene different from those found in MY299BK and Nampyeong.
This work was carried out with the support of "Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development (Project title: QTL mapping and development of functional rice with bakanae disease resistance in rice, Project No. PJ01477401)", Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.