Marker-Assisted Breeding for Rice Improvement

The changing climatic scenario set forth numerous crop production constraints, including abiotic and biotic stresses, which are causing significant losses to farmers. Rice researchers throughout the world are making a continuous effort to furnish significant solutions to counter climate-imposed challenges. In association with several breeding strategies, advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to the successful development and release of efficient rice cultivars tolerant to abiotic and biotic stresses. Further, the molecular studies entailed detecting thousands of genes that play a vital role in bringing forth the tolerance mechanism to these stresses. Enhancing knowledge about the connections between agricultural traits and DNA sequences may help rice breeding programs. Alongside, various Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs) associated with increased stress tolerance have been cloned. MAS (marker-assisted selection) refers to the use of DNA markers that are tightly linked to target loci as a substitute for or to assist phenotypic screening. MAS uses molecular markers to accelerate rice breeding by enabling precise selection of traits like disease resistance and stress tolerance, bypassing labor-intensive phenotypic evaluations and facilitating rapid development of resilient, high-yielding varieties. The use of DNA markers in plant breeding called marker-assisted breeding (MAB), has been practiced in recent decades. The book chapter focuses on research areas of utmost importance for overcoming the limitations of rice production. It highlights the developments in physiology, molecular breeding and genetic research on rice, particularly with an emphasis on boosting yield, enhancing stress tolerance and improving the nutritional quality of rice.