Marker-Assisted Introgression of Saltol QTL Enhances Seedling Stage Salt Tolerance in the Rice Variety “Pusa Basmati 1”

Marker-assisted selection is an unequivocal translational research tool for crop improvement in the genomics era. Pusa Basmati 1 (PB1) is an elite Indian Basmati rice cultivar sensitive to salinity. Here, we report enhanced seedling stage salt tolerance in improved PB1 genotypes developed through marker-assisted transfer of a major QTL, Saltol. A highly salt tolerant line, FL478, was used as the Saltol donor. Parental polymorphism survey using 456 microsatellite (SSR)/QTL-linked markers revealed 14.3% polymorphism between PB1 and FL478. Foreground selection was carried out using three Saltol-linked polymorphic SSR markers RM8094, RM493, and RM10793 and background selection by 62 genome-wide polymorphic SSR markers. In every backcross generation, foreground selection was restricted to the triple heterozygotes of foreground markers, which was followed by phenotypic and background selections. Twenty-four near isogenic lines (NILs), with recurrent parent genome recovery of 96.0–98.4%, were selected after two backcrosses followed by three selfing generations. NILs exhibited agronomic traits similar to those of PB1 and additional improvement in the seedling stage salt tolerance. They are being tested for per se performance under salt-affected locations for release as commercial varieties. These NILs appear promising for enhancing rice production in salinity-affected pockets of Basmati Geographical Indication (GI) areas of India.