Tolo, an early mature, dwarf, blast resistant and good cooking quality new rice cultivar

Cultivar Tolo (AN74) was originated from a cross made between Ali-Kazemi as a local and Nemat as an improved rice cultivars. A set of 45 pure rice breeding lines including AN74 was selected through preliminary observational evaluation of RILs populations, followed by an observational yield trial which was conducted in an augmented design in 2011. Later on, 11 selected lines including AN74 were evaluated in a replicated yield trial in 2012. Then, seven selected advanced promising lines including AN74 were tested in a multi location trial together with four check varieties including Nemat, Tarom-Mahalli, San-Huan-Zhan2 (SHZ2) and Shiroudi in four locations of Tonekabon, Amol, Babol and Behshahr in three consecutive years. Stability analysis through Additive Main effect and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) indicated that Tolo (AN74) had relative general but specific adaptability to all and central parts, such as Amol and Babol in Mazandaran province. The main characteristics of Tolo cultivar are early maturity with days to 50% of flowering of 78 ± 5 days similar to Hashemi even few days earlier, short plant height of 87 ± 3 cm, a greater 1000 grain weight of 31 ± 1.1 gr, an average grain yield of 7500 ± 500 Kg.ha-1, high tolerance against stripe stem-borer through antixenosis and antibiosis mechanisms, resistant to blast pathogen isolates with 0~1 infection type, good cooking quality with amylose content of 23 ± 1% and good aroma. Hence, with such a valuable characteristics, it has high potential for cultivating in irrigated system, as well as systems with water shortage, short growing duration, mechanized harvesting, double rice cropping and ratooning.