Molecular markers to discriminate between aromatic and non-aromatic tropical rice cultivars

Aromatic rice cultivars fetch premium price globally. Jeerakasala and Gandhakasala are the two most important and popular tropical scented rice cultivars of Kerala with GI (geographical indication) tags. Reliable procedures are essential and need of the hour for preventing adulteration in aromatic rice cultivars. Molecular technologies using polymerase chain reaction based microsatellite markers are the most reliable and efficient, compared to morphological and biochemical strategies. In this study, we aimed to identify simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers to distinguish between aromatic and non-aromatic rice cultivars at the Regional Agricultural Research Station, Pattambi, Kerala, India. Two aromatic (Gandhakasala and Jeerakasala) and two non-aromatic popular rice cultivars (Jyothi and Aathira) of Kerala, were used for the study. In the bulked line analysis using five SSR markers, RM163, RM202, and RM342 exhibited polymorphism between the aromatic and non-aromatic bulks. In addition, these three SSR markers exhibited polymorphism in individual genotyping. Hence these SSR markers are promising for discriminating between aromatic and non-aromatic tropical rice genotypes and for preventing adulteration.