Association of Various Morphological Traits with Yield and Genetic Divergence in Rice (Oryza sativa)

This study was carried out to assess the genetic diversity for various rice traits and their association with yield. The experiment was conducted in field condition with natural environmental and data on various plant parameters for each genotype were recorded at different stages of plant development. Forty rice genotypes were evaluated on the basis of various morphological traits in a field experiment. There was a significant variation for all the traits studied among the genotypes. The results indicated that the highest genetic variability was observed in plant height, spikelets per panicle, panicle length, days to heading and days to maturity. Significant correlation with yield was also noticed for Panicle length (r= 0.265**), seeds per panicle (r=0.266**) and seed weight per panicle (r= 0.339**) showed significant positive correlation with grain yield. All the traits were also studied through principal component analysis (PCA). The highest variability was observed in plant height, tillers per plant, panicle length and flag leaf area. The combined variation among these traits was 67.7%. The twenty selected genotypes on the basis of yield parameters were further evaluated for the seed traits measurements using vernier caliper. All the seed traits studied also showed significant variation amongst the genotypes. The seed length and seed width showed maximum variation (88%) with respect to other seed traits. The derived information would be very useful to select potentially breeding lines for future rice improvement program. (C) 2012 Friends Science Publishers