The brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens; BPH) is a typical piercing–sucking pest that feeds on rice phloem sap, affecting plant growth and causing “hopperburn” (Watanabe and Kitagawa 2000). Historically considered an occasional pest of rice in tropical Asia, BPH became a severe constraint to rice production following the introduction of high-yielding varieties in the 1960s (Way and Heong 1994). According to the China Agriculture Yearbook (China Agricultural Administration 2008), there were large outbreaks in 2005–2007 with over 25 million hectares infested by rice planthopper (main BPH) populations in each year. BPH infestations have intensified across Asia and the resulting losses are considered a major reason for the fourfold increase in international rice prices since 2003 (Normile 2008). Conventional methods of controlling BPH depend on the use of poisonous chemicals and are costly in terms of labor, chemicals and the environment. Furthermore, overuse of insecticides has reduced the natural enemies of BPH and enhanced resistance of the pest to insecticides (Heinrichs and Mochida 1984). Resistant rice varieties can often interact additively or synergistically with biological control, for example bysuppressing weight gain of insects and by maintaining low BPH populations across multiple generations in a large rice production area (Cohen et al.1997, Jung and Im 2005). Therefore, it is economically and environmentally beneficial to make use of host resistance (Pathak et al. 1969, Sogawa 1982), preferably as part of an integrated pest management strategy. Breeding for resistance is expensive since it requires facilities to undertake controlled testing. Where genetic information is available molecular marker-assisted selection (MAS) can be a highly effective breeding method because it offers rapid and precise selection of a targeted gene (Tanksley et al. 1989). Most studies indicate that moderate and/or polygenic resistance to insects should provide more durable resistance than single major genes (Bosque-Pérez and Buddenhagen 1992, Heinrichs 1986). To date, at least 20 genes for resistance to BPH have been identified in cultivated and wild rice species and assigned to rice chromosomes (Jairin et al. 2010, Jena and Kim 2010, Rahman et al. 2009, Yara et al. 2010). Among those genes, Bph14and Bph15 transferred to rice from O. officinalis, were first mapped in introgression line B5 as QTLs, withQbph1 on chromosome 3, later renamed as Bph14 and Qbph2 on chromosome 4, later renamed as Bph15(Huang et al. 2001). The recent cloning of Bph14 (Du et al. 2009) enables MAS of the gene in breeding programs (Hu et al. 2012).