Using the buried herbicide method to conduct genome wide association mapping for root depth in rice

Abstract EN

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the main staple foods of the world.

With the increase of population and the deficit of irrigation water, the increase in rice production that is predicted will be dependent on areas prone to drought.

Root depth is important for plant growth and survival during drought because of its role in facilitating water uptake from deep soil layers.

By advances in genomics, the plant root systems can be linked to quantitative trait locus (QTLs) information to achieve a most beneficial design of root system architecture.

There is a demand to develop and validate techniques that permit estimation of the root system.

Therefore, a buried herbicide method at depth 30 cm was used in this study to assess root trait in a total of 325 rice cultivars, allowing high resolution genetic mapping.

Using efficient mixed model statistical analysis for genome wide association, four associations were detected two on chromosome 1 and one on each of chromosome 4 and 6.

Positional candidate genes underneath QTLs were examined bioinformatically and through the literature revealing several interesting genes which may offer potential for developing drought resistant rice cultivars.

Therefore, developing a cost effective high-throughput system that can measure traits related to drought avoidance on a large number of plants would aid genetic studies in breeding and gene identification.