Genetic progress of upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) lines for disease resistance.

The rice crop is affected by diseases throughout its cycle, impacting negatively on grain yield and quality. The control of the disease impact can be accomplished via crop breeding, using highly multiple resistant genotypes. This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of multiple‐character and specific selection of multiple resistance to major culture‐associated diseases (neck blast, leaf scald and grain discoloration) in rice lines of the Upland Rice Genetic Breeding Program. The experiments were conducted in 35 sites during 12 agricultural years, where 124 lines were evaluated for the severity of fungal diseases, under natural field conditions. Multiple parameters were calculated based on the diseases´ scores: genetic, phenotypic and environmental variances, heritability, selection gain, renewal rate, and genetic and renewal progress. Genetic variance for the disease resistance was identified in the population, and the selection gain for multiple‐character selection was of 3.16 year−1 throughout the breeding process with a renewal rate of over 35%. The programme has showed efficiency in selecting multiple resistant genotypes to the mentioned diseases, highlighting genotypes with high potential for market release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]