‘Asahinoyume’, rice cultivar bred in Aichi Agricultural Research Center, has been damaged by whitebacked planthopper (WBPH) in Aichi prefecture for several years. ‘Asahinoyume’ showed significantly lower ovicidal response against WBPH compared to ‘Koshihikari’ and ‘Matsuribare’, suggesting that the susceptibility of ‘Asahinoyume’ to WBPH was caused by a low ovicidal response. We also investigated the ovicidal response and RFLP analysis with RFLP marker R1954 closely linked Ovc (Ovicidal gene) of 25 varieties and germplasms on the pedigree of ‘Asahinoyume’ to clarify the genealogical cause of the susceptibility to WBPH. Consequently, two lineage groups were low ovicidal to WBPH, one was the breeding lines derived from crossing between ‘Modan’ and ‘Norin8’, and the other was the lines derived from ‘Kyotoasahi’. Most of these varieties, including ‘Asahinoyume’, showed the same RFLP analysis pattern as ‘IR24’ without Ovc. The low ovicidal response to WBPH in ‘Asahinoyume’ can be inherited from ‘Kyotoasahi’ due to a series of low ovicidal varieties with the same RFLP analysis pattern as ‘IR24’ on the pedigree.

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