Screening and Identification of Rice Yellow Mottle Virus -tolerant Genotypes for Enhanced Breeding

One serious disease that affects rice production in Africa is Rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV). Finding novel sources of RYMV resistance for breeding purposes and evaluating the impact of RYMV disease on selected yield-related characteristics of rice in Ghana were the goals of this study. Two highly tolerant and two susceptible checks were among the seventeen (17) rice genotypes used in this study. Completely randomized design with four replications was used in the experiment, with uninoculated genotypes serving as the control (Rep 4). Compared to the other attributes, RYMV considerably reduced the grain yield, panicle number, fresh biomass, tiller number, and dry biomass. Tiller number, panicle number, plant height, flowering days, maturity days, fresh biomass, and grain yield showed high heritability in addition to high genetic advance. Grain yield, dry biomass, and grain width were the three primary areas of variation in the germplasm of the first three principal components. According to the biplot created from the data, the disease had the least effect on genotypes FL478, NERICA 4, IR29, FARO 67, CRI-Amankwatia, ART35-49-D1-1, and CRI-Enapa, along with Gigante and Tog5674 (resistant checks). The hierarchical cluster analysis revealed two primary groupings. Three moderately resistant genotypes and two highly resistant genotypes were found from the study. The recently discovered tolerant genotypes can be employed in RYMV disease resistance breeding in the Africa.