• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.86-92
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• 2001

This experiment was carried out to analyze the recent epidemic of rice blast in southern provinces of Korea in 1999 and 2000. Incidences of leaf blast and panicle blast in these years were 1.5 and 2.9 times greater than those in 1998, respectively. Cultivation areas of rice cultivars, Daesan, Ilmi and Dongan bred from Milyang 95 as a recurrent parent increased over the country from 11% in 1998 to 38.4% in 2000, which were grown in more than 85% of total paddy fields in Jeonnam province. Predominant race populations of Pyricularia grisea in the farmers' fields had been changed from KJ-301 to KI-1117 in 1999 and KI-1113 and KJ-105 in 2000. Distribution ratio of the KI-1117 race in 1998 in the southern provinces was 1.7%, but increased to 30% in 1999. Although the cultivars Daesan, Ilmi and Dongan have shown wide spectrum of resistance to many races including KJ-301, they were susceptible to such races as KI-1117, KI-1113 and, KJ-105. These three races could be further classified into two sub-races, KI-1117 and KI-1117a, KI-1113 and Kl-1113a, and KJ-105 and KJ-105a based on virulence to Daesan. The newly classfied races, Kl-1113a, Kl-1117a, and KJ-l05a were also pathogenic to Ilmi and Dongan. This indicates that rice blast epidemic in southern provinces in 1999 and 2000 resulted from the breakdown of the resistance of Daesan, Ilmi and Dongan by the rapid increase of virulent races KI-1117, KI-1113, KJ-105 and their new sub-races.