Rice blast resistance is considered one of the most important traits in rice breeding and the disease, caused by Magnaporthe grisea Barr, has brought significant crop losses annually. Moreover, breakdown of resistance normally occurs in two to five years after cultivar release, thus a more durable resistance is needed for better control of this disease. We developed a new variety, Keumo3, which showed strong resistance to leaf blast. It was tested in 2003 to 2007 at fourteen blast nursery sites covering entire rice-growing regions of South Korea. It showed resistance reactions in 12 regions and moderate in 2 regions without showing susceptible reactions. Durability test by sequential planting method indicated that this variety had better resistance. Results showed that Keumo3 was incompatible against 19 blast isolates with the exception of KI101 by artificial inoculation. To understand the genetic control of blast resistance in rice cultivar Keumo3 and facilitate its utilization, recombinant inbred lines (RIL) consisting of 290 F5 lines derived from Akidagomachi/Keumo3 were analyzed and genotyped with Pizt InDel marker zt56591. The recombination value between the marker allele of zt56591 and bioassay data of blast nursery test was 1.1%. These results indicated that MAS can be applied in selecting breeding populations for blast resistance using zt56591 as DNA marker.

This study was done to understand the G x E interaction of rice blast reaction for Japonica high quality rice varieties and to observe blast pattern for high quality varieties. Twenty one percent of the total sum of squares (SST) in blast reaction data of high quality Japonica varieties is attributed to genotype (G) by environment (E) interaction variation. This portion of blast response is higher than 8～12% of G x E effect in blast severity data obtained from various ecotypes of rice varieties. Blast response scores obtained from high quality Japonica varieties group were more severely affected by environment condition than mixed groups with Japonica and Indica varieties. Interaction Principal Component Analysis (IPCA) scores obtained from AMMI analysis for the leaf blast response implied variation of G x E interaction. Correlation analysis suggested that IPCA1 was associated with latitude, maximum mean temperature, precipitation and mean cloud amount. IPCA2 was associated with mean relative humidity, and IPCA3 was associated with precipitation and minimum relative humidity. Pattern analysis generated nine genotype clusters according to blast reaction over 11 regions. Collectively, the A, B, C, and D groups were susceptible to rice blast, where as the E, F, G, H, and I groups were relatively resistant to rice blast through multi-location blast nursery test. Relationship between the identified genes of high quality varieties and blast scores at each test site in the level of group could be analyzed based on the results from G x E Interaction analysis.

The elite rice cultivar, Suweon365, shows high level of leaf blast resistance. The number and chromosomal locations of genes conferring the resistance were detected by linkage analysis using DNA markers in the RILs from the cross between Suweon365 and Chu