Optimization of leaf water loss rate assay for rapid and stable drought tolerance screening in rice

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The global rice reduction due to drought averages 18 Mt, especially, 23 Mha of rice fields in Asia are drought-prone. However, rice breeding programs focusing on drought resistance have made little progress to date. Because proper screening approaches with large scale were not developed to evaluate the drought tolerant degree. In here, we have developed of leaf water loss rate with plastic ware in dark conditions for large screening. Through this bioassay system, we examined drought phenotype degrees of 650 rice varieties. To validate whether this optimized bioassay system is corelated with drought phenotype, we chose 14 varieties having the lowest or highest of the water loss rate. We observed the visual drought phenotype and agricultural traits in green house and field conditions. Apo and Samgang having the lowest of leaf water loss rate showed drought tolerance phenotype, whereas Yeolbaeg and Milyang254 having the highest of leaf water loss rate showed drought sensitive phenotype. Apo displayed proper root length trait and Samgang showed good root dry trait in the greenhouse conditions. These results suggest that a simple screening procedure with water lose rate of leaves is effective to perform large scale screening for drought phenotype in rice.