Broadening Genetic Base of Rice and Identification of Pre-Breeding Lines for Resistance to Brown Plant Hopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål.)

Pre-breeding includes basic research to achieve wide crosses and facilitate the use of exotic materials or wild relatives for both qualitative and quantitative traits. The main objective is to provide breeders with more ‘attractive’ PGR that are easier to use, i.e. resistance sources in acceptable genetic background; or inbreeding tolerant forms of out crossing species for hybrid breeding. Forty seven pre-breeding lines were evaluated against Brown Plant Hopper under glasshouse condition over a period of two years (2018 and 2019). Out of these, two pre-breeding lines were moderately resistant to BPH having score 3. Two pre-breeding lines were moderately susceptible to BPH having score 5, five lines were susceptible having score 7 and rest thirty nine pre-breeding lines were highly susceptible to BPH with a score of 9.