Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the important crops and staple food of many countries. Rice crop suffers from many diseases worldwide. Blast is one of the serious diseases of rice causing higher yield losses. Production of rice in the world is continuously threatened by blast outbreaks (Koutroubas et al., 2009). Blast is caused by a fungal pathogen, called Pyricularia oryzae, which is an anamorph stage and the teleomorph stage is called as Magnaporthe grisea (Rossman et al., 1990). The fungus attacks all the aerial parts of the plant. Many management practices are being utilized to minimize the effects of rice blast, like fungicides application, cultural practices, resistant cultivars and biotechnological methods. Now-a-days use of chemicals is beingdiscouraged because fungicides are disturbing the ecosystem and causing interruption in the natural processes (Mancini et al., 2008) Environmental issues are directing attention of scientists towards alternative environment friendly methods to manage pathogens. One of these methods is the use of resistant cultivars.
展开▼
