Drought Tolerant near Isogenic Lines (NILs) of Pusa 44 Developed through Marker Assisted Introgression of qDTY2.1 and qDTY3.1 Enhances Yield under Reproductive Stage Drought Stress

Reproductive stage drought stress (RSDS) is detrimental for rice, which affects its productivity as well grain quality. In the present study, we introgressed two major quantitative trait loci (QTLs), namely, qDTY2.1 and qDTY3.1, governing RSDS tolerance in a popular high yielding non-aromatic rice cultivar, Pusa 44, through marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB). 44 highly sensitive to RSDS, restricts cultivation across drought-prone environments. Foreground selection was carried out using markers, RM520 qDTY3.1 RM 521 qDTY2.1. Background achieved with 97 polymorphic SSR markers tandem phenotypic achieve faster recurrent parent genome (RPG) recovery. Three successive backcrosses followed by three selfings aided RPG recoveries of 98.6% 99.4% among 31 near isogenic lines (NILs). Fourteen NILs were found be significantly superior yield quality under higher efficiency (DTE) than 44. Among these, evaluation promising multilocational trial during Kharif 2019 showed that they reproductive stress, while performing on par normal irrigated conditions. These di-QTL pyramided drought-tolerant are final stages testing All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project varietal trials cultivar release. Alternately, elite will serve an invaluable source improvement.