Marker-Assisted Development of an Extra-Long Grain and High Yielding Basmati Rice Line with Semi-Erect and Dense Panicles

In the face of a rapidly swelling global population, demands to develop high yielding and climate-resilient rice varieties are at a peak. The productivity of traditional basmati cultivars is limiting due to their cultivation in a specific geographical region, requiring genetic modifications to make this premium rice more productive without compromising the quality attributes. Here, we developed a candidate basmati advance uniform line by combining marker-assisted selection with conventional breeding. A cross was made between Basmati 515 and IRBB 66 followed by the pedigree method up to F5, where a uniform recombinant inbred line was hybridized with PK 1121 Aromatic followed by three backcrosses and pedigree method up to BC3F5. Gene pyramiding for aroma, dense and erect panicles, grain length and width was achieved through four gene-linked markers (BADEX7-5, DEP1, GW8-indel and FMGS-7). The newly developed line was named “BLB 18-5001” predominately harbored the agronomic and quality characteristics of Basmati 515 along with panicle architecture and grain dimension traits from IRBB 66 and PK 1121 Aromatic, respectively. The BLB 18-5001 outperformed all parental genotypes in thousand-grain weight (28.5 g), grain yield (4.7 tons/hectare), average grain length (9.22 mm) and cooked grain length (19.5 mm). Field evaluation under natural field conditions across two consecutive growing seasons revealed superior agronomic and quality attributes of BLB 18-5001, suggesting an unprecedented genetic potential to meet the future varietal demands. In conclusion, the newly developed basmati line possesses superior attributes to approved rice cultivars along with semi-erect and dense panicles and could improve the limiting productivity of basmati rice.