Executive Summary : | Number of diseases are emerging as major problem and bakanae/foot rot/foolish seedling is one such disease. The disease was an endemic problem in the past with no significant losses in India, however, the disease has recently become a serious threat due to climate change, changes in cultivation practices, and emergence of new pathogenic strains/races.Some of the reports also indicated that, infected plants cannot produce any filled grains leading to spikelet sterility which can contribute to yield loss reaching 50% in Japan, 40% in Nepal, 28.8% in Korea, 6-60% in Pakistan and 5-95% in India.Various species of Fusarium are associated with bakanae disease from different countries thus; the disease is called as Fusarium fujikuroi species complex (FFSC). Species such as Fusarium fujikuroi, F. proliferatum, F. verticilloides and F. andiyazi are predominantly responsible for causing bakanae disease.The species distribution, symptom and loss are mainly attributed to the factors like organ of the rice plant affected, geographical situation, climatic conditions and varietal susceptibility.Frequent genetic mutations occur in the pathogen population over the geographical regions may also lead to epidemic losses.Though the disease is more than 100 year old, it is still not clear that, which species is responsible for type of symptoms the disease produces.Still, there is no information on races/pathotypes of the isolates of the FFSC as there may me new races, virulence groups evolved to cause increased disease incidence and losses in new geographical regions. This information needs to be generated mostly urgently.This information is have great significance for effective disease management and can have strong impact for breeding programs for developing bakanae resistant cultivars. identification of resistant sources and utilization in breeding program to develop stable resistant variety is the most economical, eco-friendly approach in disease management. Since, the disease is emerging as major problem over past few years; the work on such aspect is limited. This needs to be addressed immediately with priority.Only work from India for QTL identification and three QTLs such as qBK1.1, qBK1.2 and qBK1.3 on chromosome1 and qBK3.1 on chromosome 3. During last few years the disease posing big threat to rice crop in Eastern and north Eastern India. No information is available on pathogen biology, species distribution, race/pathotypes, vegetative compatible groups (VCGs) and mating types in pathogen isolates. Hence, development of a standard differential set and classification of pathogen races will help in the effective identification and deployment of R genes.present project will shed light on race profiling and development and standard differential sets and also identify the genomic regions/QTLs for bakanae resistance. Identification of QTLs and novel candidate gene/s could improve rice breeds with enhanced yield levels by imparting durable resistance |