Evaluation of Resistance to Rice Sheath Blight (Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn) of Rice Germplasms at Seedling Stage

Rice sheath blight (ShB), caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn, is one of the serious fungal disease resulting in severe yield loss in rice field worldwide. There are limited sources of genetic resistance and no commercial cultivar with high level of ShB resistance is currently available in Korea. In order to seek available resources with high level of resistance to ShB, 40 rice germplasms were used to evaluate disease reactions including ShB, leaf blast and bacterial leaf blight and these germplasms also examined agronomic traits such as days to heading, culm length, panicle length, No. of panicles, No. of spikelets per panicle and so on. There is wide variation in agronomic characters and disease reactions. Rice germplasms also showed considerably different ShB reaction caused by inoculation at seedling stage. Areumbyeo, Gayabyeo, IR579-Es44 and IR64 showed more strong reaction to ShB than the others. Especially, Gayabyeo is considerably available to develop a new variety with resistance to ShB in Korea.