Evaluation on Primal Parental Varieties Resistance to Rice False Smut for Rice Breeding

Rice false smut, caused by Ustilaginoidea virens (Cooke) Takahashi, is one of the most serious rice diseases in China.The scarcity of resistant resource is an important factor that restricts rice resistant breeding.In this study, rice false smut resistance of 117rice varieties that are commonly used for breeding was evaluated in the area with heavy disease.The results showed that only 2cultivars demonstrated resistance and 17cultivars (14.53%) were with middle resistance.Of 117varieties, 56 (47.86%) displayed middle susceptibility while 42 (35.90%) were identified as susceptive ones.The data indicated that rice false smut resistant varieties were scarce in commonly applied rice parents.Temperatures in booting stage and heading stage, different growth period and the structure of spikes were important to disease occurrence and epidemic.Additionally, there was also certain difference of disease resistance between indica and japonica rice.Our study provides fundamental materials for rice false smut resistance breeding.