Southern corn rust (SCR) is a destructive disease in maize. The inbred line Qi319 is highly resistant to southern corn rust. SSR technique was employed to preliminary mapping of the resistance gene. Bulked segregant analysis revealed that two primers, phi 118 and phi 041, amplified polymorphic bands. SSR analysis on populations indicated the two primers were linked to the rust resistance gene, which was mapped on the short arm of chromosome 10. In addition, comparative analysis of the amplification bands among different populations revealed that the amplification products with the same primer in different populations were dissimilar. This result indicates that the genetic background may affect results of gene mapping and tagging. So, it is important to select suitable population to performing molecular marker analysis and gene mapping.