Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding

The goal of this work was to find marker-trait association to assess ability of rice genotypes to withstand salinity, which is an important consideration in abiotic stress breeding. In order to breed rice genotypes with tolerance to salinity stress, it is necessary to identify highly tolerant germplasm sources. Eighty-six rice genotypes were evaluated under field conditions. In order to determine their relationship with salinity tolerance, 16 microsatellite markers were used concurrently. Microsoft Excel’s regression-based Single Marker Analysis (SMA) was used to estimate this association. Nine of the 16 polymorphic markers RM3412, RM10843, RM562, RM10793, RM 10748, RM8094, RM10694, RM1287 and RM493 showed statistically significant marker-trait relationships, suggesting the presence of important putative genetic loci linked to chromosome 1 with ability to withstand salinity. The range of 1.0% to 24.9% for the percentage of total variance of phenotype explained by the relevant markers indicates the dependability of these genetic markers for enhancing breeding for salinity tolerance. The existence of these markers in the tolerant germplasm lines from the findings of the research could be utilized to salinity tolerance cultivars through marker-assisted breeding programs because they are associated with the Saltol gene/QTL, respectively.