Physiological and Molecular-Genetic Evaluation of Rice Breeding Resources on Cold Tolerance for Creating New Varieties for the Northern Zone of Rice Cultivation

This study was aimed at assessing cold tolerance of rice breeding materials produced in Kazakhstan and foreign countries in the phase of seed germination, creating initial cold-tolerant forms and lines to derive Kazakhstan varieties of rice and identifying in the selection material the genes of the quantitative loci of cold tolerance (qPSST-3, qPSST-7 and qPSST-9), based on the molecular-genetic approach. 29 rice varieties were screened in the laboratory condition for cold tolerance and cold sensitivity when exposed to cold stress. By the results of screening in the early phase of rice growth, the most cold-tolerant varieties were chosen, such as Kuban 3, UzROS 7-13 and Lazurny. The chosen promising varieties were used as the female parent form for creating cold-tolerant hybrids. Microsatellite DNA profiles were obtained for rice varieties of Kazakh, Russian breeding and breeding of other countries by the loci that are closely related to the Quantitative Loci (QTLs) of cold tolerance. Screening tests of IPBB rice genetic plasma for cold tolerance helped to identify donors of useful agronomic traits, which are extremely important for developing promising pre-selection resources.