Evaluation of Disease Resistance of Rice Cultivar Developed in North Korea

Almost 30% of arable lands of North Korea are covered with paddy rice. In rice cultivation of North Korea, rice blast disease is the most important fungal disease and bacterial leaf blight is the most important bacterial disease. Seven North Korean rice cultivars had been tested for the disease resistance against rice blast pathogen, Magnaporthe oryzae and bacterial leaf blight pathogen, Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. The responses of seven cultivars against 17 different M. oryzae races from South Korea had been quite different. Among seven cultivars, Giljoo1ho was very resistant to all 18 different M. oryzae isolates from South Korea, nevertheless KI or KJ. Pyungdo5ho was very susceptible, it showed susceptible responses to 8 out of 10 KI races and 7 out of 8 KJ races of M. oryzae isolated in South Korea. However, the response to bacterial leaf blight was different from the response to rice blast pathogen. Gijoo1ho, Wonsan69ho, Onpo1ho, and Pyungdo15ho were susceptible to KXO42 (K1) and KXO90 (K2), respectively. Pyungdo5ho was resistant to KXO85 (K1) and KXO19 (K3), and Pyungyang21ho was resistant to K1 races. Based on these results, Giljoo1ho can be a good resource for the breeding of resistant rice cultivar against M. oryzae isolates from South Korea.