The intensity of rice false smut disease in selected states of northwest and south India was studied. In northern Indian states as a whole, disease incidence (percentage of false smut-infected tillers) varied from 2% to 75%. In the state of Haryana, maximum infection was recorded on hybrids like PA 6444 and PA 6129 while in Punjab state, 10-20% disease incidence was recorded in popular inbred rice varieties like PR 114, PA 116 and PAU 201. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the disease incidence varied from 5% to 85%. A heavy incidence of the disease was noticed in variety BPT 5204 and due to this, the air above the infected field gave a black smoky appearance from a distance as a result of release of spore mass in the atmosphere. In severe cases the number of infected grains reached even more than 100 per panicle. The pathogen Ustilaginoidea virens was isolated in potato dextrose agar medium and was characterized by both pathogenicity test and molecular analysis. Under glasshouse conditions, when a conidial suspension of the pathogen was injected during boot leaf stage of the rice variety TN1, typical smut balls were observed. The identity of the pathogen was further confirmed through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis using U. virens-specific internal transcribed spacer (ITS) primers. The primer pair US 1-5/US3-3 and US2-5/US4-3 amplified 380 bp and 232 bp product, respectively, which are typical for the U. virens fungus.
Bacterial blight (BB) is a major production threat to Basmati, the aromatic rice prized for its unique quality. In order to improve the BB resistance of two elite, traditional BB-susceptible Basmati varieties (Taraori Basmati and Basmati 386), we utilized the strategy of limited marker-assisted backcrossing Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.