Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2020, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (5): 577-587.DOI: 10.11983/CBB20100

• INVITED PROTOCOLS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Methods for Evaluation of Rice Resistance to Blast and Sheath Blight Diseases

Min He1, Junjie Yin1, Zhiming Feng2, Xiaobo Zhu1, Jianhua Zhao2, Shimin Zuo2,*(), Xuewei Chen1,*()   

  1. 1State Key Laboratory of Exploration and Utilization of Crop Gene Resources in Southwest China, Rice Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
    2Key Laboratory of Plant Functional Genomics of the Ministry of Education/Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Crop Genomics and Molecular Breeding, College of Agriculture, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
  • Received:2020-05-28 Accepted:2020-07-21 Online:2020-09-01 Published:2020-09-03
  • Contact: Shimin Zuo,Xuewei Chen

Abstract: Rice is the most important crop in the world. However, rice blast caused by Magnaporthe oryzae and sheath blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani are two of diseases, which threaten both yield and quality of rice most severely. To ensure food security, it is very important to identify disease-resistant rice germplasm, clone disease resistant genes, uncover the molecular basis and apply them in rice breeding program. Accurate evaluation of the disease resistance of rice is fundamental to both uncover disease resistance mechanism and improve resistance in rice breeding. Here, we describe the common methods for evaluating rice blast disease resistance by spraying inoculation of seedlings with M. oryzae, injection inoculation at rice tillering and booting stage, and punch inoculation of detached rice leaves. We also describe the methods for evaluating rice sheath blight disease resistance by field inoculation with R. solani at rice tillering stage, greenhouse inoculation at rice booting stage, and inoculation of rice detached-stems in growth chamber. We believe these methods could provide useful protocols for colleagues who aim to identify rice disease-resistant resources, dissect the underlying molecular mechanism and breed elite rice varieties with improved disease resistance.

Key words: rice, blast, sheath blight, resistance evaluation