Bacterial leaf blight and blast diseases are two major threats to rice production and many India rice varieties including the popular mega-rice variety, MTU1010 are highly susceptible to the above mentioned diseases. We used marker assisted backcross breeding to transfer two major genes, viz., Xa21 and Pi54 conferring resistance to bacterial leaf blight and blast diseases, respectively into the genetic background of a Near Isogenic line of MTU1010 possessing the yield enhancing gene, Gn1a. At BC₁F₆stage_, ten best introgressed lines were selected and subjected for phenotypic screening against bacterial leaf blight under field conditions and for blast disease resistance under artificial condition in uniform blast nursery. These lines exhibited good performance with high level of resistance to two biotic stresses viz., bacterial blight and blast.

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