Abstract

Erukeje Ahmadikhah and B. M. Kamkar

Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is a common phenomenon that has been extensively used for production of hybrid seeds in various crops. Rf genes are needed for restoring fertility to CMS lines. Searching for and molecular tagging of restorer genes is of high importance where phenotyping is very time consuming and requires the determination of spikelet sterility in testcross progeny. In this study we attempted to map a fertility restorer gene using SSR and CAPS markers in rice line IR36 in a F2 population developed from the cross Neda- A×IR36. The genetic linkage analysis indicated that thee SSR markers (RM1, RM3233, RM3873) and one CAPS marker (RG140/EcoRI) on the short arm of chromosome 1 were linked to Rf3. Rf3 flanked by tow SSR markers RM1 and RM3873 at distances of 5.6 and 14 cM, respectively. The use of identified markers give promise for their application in molecular marker assisted selection (MAS).