Resistance genes and gene pyramids controlling rice blast pathogen populations in eight African countries

Abstract

The behavior of rice varieties under natural environments in fields often differs from the expected one. For developing varieties, breeders give then a particular importance to multi-local field screening to confirm the resistance of their germplasm. We assembled 81 accessions e.g. blast differential, traditional and improved varieties and tested them for resistance to blast (Pyricularia grisea) in eight African hot spots under different ecologies. We thus expected to identify accessions and genes or gene pyramids that provide durable resistance locally or across sites.