RESPONSE OF RICE GENOTYPES FOR THEIR INTERACTION WITH BACILLUS SUBTILIS FOR BLAST DISEASE RESISTANCEShivashankaragouda Patil, J.R. Diwan, D. Pramesh, K. Mahantashivayogayya, Mahadeva Swamy, Vikas V. Kulkarni and MaheshAbstract Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a staple food source for nearly 3.5 billion people and has occupied an enviable prime place among the food crops cultivated around the world. Major diseases causing yield losses in rice include bacterial blight, blast, sheath blight, and tungro virus which adversely affect rice yield. Among these diseases, rice blast caused by the Magnaporthe oryzae (anamorph: Pyricularia oryzae) is one of the most damaging diseases of rice in many regions of the world. The disease occurs on leaves, stems and seeds of the cultivated crop. In view of these, the present investigation was carried out at the Agricultural Research Station (ARS), Gangavathi, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Raichur during Kharif 2021, to evaluate the response of twenty rice genotypes in Uniform Blast Nursery (UBN) for blast incidence when they were treated with Bacillus subtilis and untreated condition. The B. subtilis significantly reduced the blast incidence in treated IR-64, GNV 1905 and IET-25220 genotypes compared to untreated, whereas 17 genotypes showed moderately resistant to blast disease. The resistance mechanism offered in these genotypes may be due to the interaction of B. subtilis with plants, which might have activated the defense response in the plants by triggering the Induced Systemic Resistance (ISR) by potentially regulating the defense-related genes in salicylic acid (SA)- and Jasmonic acid (JA)-dependent signalling pathways in plants. These findings suggest that B. subtilis could be a potential bio inoculum for rice to control blast disease and enhance yield. |