Selection of drought-tolerant rice varieties from the rice variety bank of Can Tho university

Drought has been a big problem and damaged seriously to rice cultivation and production in Vietnam and the Mekong Delta region; evaluating drought tolerance of rice is a major objective for the rice improvement programmes in Can Tho University. Fifty-two collected rice varieties including resistant and susceptible control varieties were screened for water stress under the artificial drought condition. Marker RM223 was used to identify the drought tolerance genotypes for some selected varieties with good and moderate tolerant scores. After 30 days of water stress, the results were 6 varieties of good tolerant, 8 varieties of moderate tolerance, 36 varieties of moderately susceptible and 2 varieties of susceptible to drought. Analyses of PCR showed that 10 varieties expressed the similar bands with the resistant control variety. Four varieties (LH8, MTL812, Lua Canh and VB1) with good tolerant to drought were recommended to use for genetic materials of rice breeding program and applying in alternative wetting and drying irrigation technique for rice cultivation.