Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important staple cereal crop which is consumed by more than 50% of world population. It contributes 23% and 50% of total calories consumed by world and Nepalese population respectively. Among various abiotic factors affecting rice, rice blast is the most disastrous, causing 70-80% yield loss. This disease was originated in China around 7000 years ago. In Nepal, it was first reported in Thimi, Bhaktapur in 1966. It is caused by a filamentous ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe oryzae (Anaemorphic form- Pyricularia oryzae). It infects all the developmental stage of plant and produce symptoms on the leaf, collar, neck, panicle and even in the glumes. It decreases the rice production by an amount, enough to feed 60 million people every year. Cloudy weather, high relative humidity (93-99%), low night temperature (15- 20°C), longer duration of dew is the most favorable condition for the outbreak of disease. The most usual approaches for the management of rice blast diseases are management in nutrient fertilizer and irrigation, application of fungicides and plantation of resistant cultivars. Besides, the use of extracts of C. arabica are reported to have an inhibitory effect on the disease. Seed treatment with Trichoderma viridae @ 5ml/lit of water have also been found effective. The chemical means of controlling blast disease shall be reduced, instead eco-friendly measures like biocontrol agents, resistant varieties, plant extracts can be practiced for disease control. Different forecasting model can be used in order to predict the disease prevalence.

This study was undertaken to assess the combining ability of 6 rice varieties, for viscosity parameters and determining gene action controlling Rapid Visco Analyser (RVA) characters. F2 progenies derived from a 6×6 half diallel mating design with their parents were grown in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the research farm of Rice Research Institute of Iran (RRII) in 2015. The diallel analysis by Griffing`s method indicated the involvement of additive and non-additive gene actions controlling RVA traits. For traits PV and FV RI18447-2 and IR50 were the best combiners for increasing and decreasing, respectively. Deylamani and IR50 were the best combiners for increasing and decreasing BV, respectively. Beside, due to more portion of non-additive gene action in controlling trait SV, The Gilaneh × RI18430-46, and Deylamani × RI18430-46 crosses were the best for increasing and decreasing SV, respectively. The high estimates of broad sense heritability and narrow sense heritability for BV and FV, indicated the importance of additive effects in expression of these traits. Therefore, selection base breeding methods will be useful to improve these traits and selection in the early generations could be done to fix the favourable genes. Low estimate of narrow sense heritability for SV revealed that non-additive gene effects play important role in controlling setback viscosity. So, hybrid base breeding methods will be useful to improve this trait.

Five CMS lines were crossed with 49 genotypes as ‘testers’ to get 245 hybrids. The 245 hybrids were subjected to pollen and spikelet fertility analysis. Among the 245 hybrids 21 hybrids were expressed as restorers, 24 as maintainers, and 200 intermediate types. Six tester’s viz., BR6592-4-6-4, BR6839-41-5-1, IR74052-184-3-3, IR72593-B-3-2-2-2, BR7011-37-1-2, and IR72049-B-R-22-3-1-1 were identified as restorers for highest 2 lines out of the five CMS lines, differently. None of them were found to be restorer for all the five CMS lines. BAU581 was found to be maintainer for four lines except for D.ShanA. Purbachi was found to be maintainer for three lines except for D.ShanA and IR73328A out of the five CMS lines. Out of 245 crosses only 45 crosses contributed directly to the identification of maintainer and restorer. Other crosses were more or, less of intermediate types which indicated neither maintainer nor restorer. It is well known that, pollen fertility is controlled by one dominant gene (RfRf). If pollen fertility is governed by only one gene the product would be either restorer or, maintainer where will be no existence of intermediate types. So, there might be modifier genes in different genotypes which interacted with male sterile nuclear genes that resulted in intermediate male sterility in the crosses.