Morphological diversity of panicle traits in Kam fragrant glutinous rice (Oryza sativa)

Panicle traits are the most intuitive and representative features of rice germplasm resources that have been utilized in the determination of its identity, genetic diversity, yield, and quality. Based on the approaches of ethnobotany, cultural anthropology and plant morphology, we analyzed the panicle traits of 95 traditional Kam fragrant glutinous rice landraces according to folk classification in Qiandongnan Prefecture of Guizhou Province in the past 10 years. A total of 95 Kam fragrant glutinous rice landraces were tested, of which 91% consisted of those with awns, and landraces with awn lengths of 2-6 cm comprised 62%. The coefficient of variation (CV) of awn color, husk color and Grain color was more than 50%, thereby indicating extensive morphological variations among the traditional Kam fragrant glutinous rice landraces. The average Shannon-Wiener value (diversity index, H') for panicle qualitative traits was 0.50, which was significantly higher than that of quantitative traits (0.22), thereby indicating a relatively higher degree of genetic diversity among qualitative traits. Cluster analysis of panicle morphological traits showed that 95 Kam fragrant glutinous rice landraces could be divided into five categories, using the Euclidean distance of 0.68 as threshold. Each cultivar manifested unique panicle traits. The present study on the morphological diversity of Kam fragrant glutinous rice landraces provided basic information that may be utilized for the conservation and sustainable use of Kam fragrant glutinous rice landraces.