Breeding of High Cooking and Eating Quality in Rice by Marker-Assisted Backcrossing (MABc) Using KASP Markers

The primary goals of rice breeding programs are grain quality and yield potential improvement. With the high demand for rice varieties of premium cooking and eating quality, we developed low-amylose content breeding lines crossed with Samgwang and Milkyqueen through the marker-assisted backcross (MABc) breeding program. Trait markers of the SSIIIa gene referring to low-amylose content were identified through an SNP mapping activity, and the markers were applied to select favorable lines for a foreground selection. To rapidly recover the genetic background of Samgwang (recurrent parent genome, RPG), 386 genome-wide markers were used to select BC(1)F(1) and BC(2)F(1) individuals. Seven BC(2)F(1) lines with targeted traits were selected, and the genetic background recovery range varied within 97.4–99.1% of RPG. The amylose content of the selected BC(2)F(2) grains ranged from 12.4–16.8%. We demonstrated the MABc using a trait and genome-wide markers, allowing us to efficiently select lines of a target trait and reduce the breeding cycle effectively. In addition, the BC(2)F(2) lines confirmed by molecular markers in this study can be utilized as parental lines for subsequent breeding programs of high-quality rice for cooking and eating.