Abstract：

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important grain crop worldwide, and drought has become an important factorrestricting rice yield. As a unique rice germplasm in Hainan (China), Shanlan upland rice has rich genetic diversityand certain advantage for breeding water-saving and drought-resistance rice. 48 varieties, including 41Shanlan upland rice, 3 upland rice, and 4 irrigated rice varieties was cultivated in soil pots. The droughtresistance was assessed at the seedling stage using the stress coefficients of seven indicators, as the D valuecalculating from five principal components to rank the varieties. Five cultivars with strong, medium, and lowresistance, were selected for transcriptome sequencing. The results of the GSEA analysis showed that free aminoacid content increased through the redistribution of energy in Shanlan upland rice to cope with drought stress. Inaddition, we found that Os03g0623100 was significantly up-regulated under drought stress conditions in varietieswith high drought resistance, as compared with low resistance cultivars. The Os03g0623100 was predictedto interact with LEA protein in the STRING database, which may contribute to maintaining the energy metabolismsto under stress conditions. This study provides a view of Shanlan upland rice as a drought-resistantgermplasm resource, and a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanism of crop drought resistance.

KeyWords:

Shanlan upland riceDroughtGermplasm resource