Identification Of Molecular Markers Associated With Accumulation Of Soluble Silicon In Aerobically Grown Rice

Silicon (Si) is a micronutrient, though not considered to be an essential nutrient for terrestrial plants but is often a major constituent of plant tissues. Apparently no other non-essential element is present in such consistently high amounts in the terrestrial plants. Si concentration in the plant tissues sometimes even exceeds the concentrations of nitrogen and potassium. It has been found to give resistance against various abiotic and biotic stresses mainly drought and blast disease respectively in case of rice. We estimated the soluble silicon content from fresh leaves at flowering stage of 51 diverse rice genotypes grown under aerobic conditions. Single marker analysis (SMA) and stepwise multiple regression analysis (SMRA) was done to find-out markers contributing for the silicon accumulation in rice. We identified a number of RAPD markers associated with the accumulation of soluble silicon in rice. Among the various RAPD markers, SMA established association of five RAPD markers among which maximum association was shown by OPD31000 (23.07%), followed by OPB8700 (17.42%)while the SMRA showed OPB82000 and OPC141200 contributing more than 7% for accumulation of soluble silicon in leaves at flowering stage with positive parameter estimates. These markers can be used as an initial resource for identification and validation of tightly linked markers for this trait and later be used in molecular breeding program for improvement of rice crop. As silicon gives resistance against various abiotic (mainly drought) and biotic (blast disease) stresses in rice, hence can also be utilized in determining the resistance status of rice against these stresses.