“…So far, more than 350 QTLs (associated with blast resistance) and 100 blast resistance (R) genes have been identified for rice blast resistance, and 27 resistance genes vizPib, Pb1, Pita, Pikh,Pish,Pik,Pikp,Pi9,Pi2,Pizt,Pid2,Pi33,Pii,Pi36,Pi37, Evaluation of blast resistance genes Pikm,Pit,Pi5,Pid3,Pia,PiCO39,Pi25,Pi1,pi21,Pi50 and Pi65(t) have been cloned and functionally validated at molecular level (Su et al, 2015;Zheng et al, 2016;zhu et al, 2016). Identifying effective combinations of genes conferring broad spectrum resistance against prevailing pathogen races is very important in blast resistance breeding (Thippeswamy et al, 2016). The present study was aimed at validating resistance reaction of two major genes Pi9 and Pi54 against local isolates of blast pathogen in Tamil Nadu located at southern part of India.…”