Rice is a staple cereal of India cultivated in about 43.5 Mhaareas but with relatively low average productivity. Abiotic factors like drought, flood and salinity affect rice production adversely in more than 50% of this area.
Our main first objective is to identification of genes/QTLs for salt tolerance in rice and the second one is QTL mapping and identification of genes for aroma and grain dimensions in rice.
This is the ongoing National Professor project in which we have already collected, characterized, conserved and evaluated 500 accessions of wild rice from different parts of India. Also designed a 50K SNP chip and studied the evolution and domestication of rice. Several accessions of wild rice has been identified which are highly tolerant to drought, flood, salinity, blast, leaf blight and sheath blight. Using 50K SNP chip it has been shown that the cultivated rice is most closely related with specific groups of wild rice from India and indicating their domestication in the India
Coordinating this network project of 15 different institutions, which is transferring 9 major QTLs for drought, flooding ad salt tolerance into 20 different popular rice varieties of India in collaboration with IRRI Philippines. Advance backcross derived lines are under field-testing.
We have published the first draft of wheat genome in top international journal Science in 2014. The work is on to complete a reference genome of wheat by 2018.
Marker-assisted recurrent selection has been used for the transfer of drought and heat tolerance traits in wheat under international collaboration.
We have identified a major QTL for grain number in rice and identified candidate genes. The QTL has been transferred in the background or 12 different high yielding varieties of rice and gives variable increase in the number of grains per panicle.
The project is aimed at objective monitoring the spread of rice varieties with the help of DNA fingerprinting of samples collected from the farmer’s fields.
A high density molecular map of jute has been created using RAD-TAG SNP markers, and a major QTL for bast-fiber quality has been mapped.
A comprehensive database of all rice genes has been made in relation to SSR and SNP markers for important agronomic traits.
Standardize the development of doubled haploids in wheat using wheat-maize crosses.
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Completed the Genome Sequencing of Rice Chromosome 11 in Time As Per Expectations of International Consortium.
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This was the First Network Project on Biotechnology of Wheat Quality, Funded By DBT.
