Identification of rice genotypes resistant to panicle blast

ABSTRACT: Rice blast disease caused by Pyricularia grisea (Cooke) Sacc of the most important diseases of rice. The use of resistant cultivars is the most effective method of disease control. In this study, 38 genotypes were evaluated for resistance to blast in 2011. The experimental design was a randomized block design with three replications in the field condition was conducted. Means comparison of Panicle Blast Severity (PBS) showed that IRBL5-M and IRBL11-ZH genotypes, respectively, with 3.28 and 6.23 percent had the lowest and VNIIR10200 (SHARM) genotype, highest percentage ( = 37.55) of panicle blast Severity. Simple correlation coefficients of panicle blast severity (PBS), infection type and three agronomic traits (days to 50% flowering, plant height and phenotypic acceptability) of 38 rice genotypes showed that Panicle blast severity (PBS) with panicle infection type (R= 0.55) and phenotypic acceptability (R = 0.334) has a significant positive relationship. But the severity of panicle blast (PBS) with plant height (R = 0.389) and days to 50% flowering (R = 0.328) has a significant negative correlation. In generally, the 29 genotypes in panicle step, resistant or moderately resistant reaction to panicle blast were clustered