Level, variability and correlation of quantitative morphological traits and grain quality in rice varietis

Abstract

Theresultsofthree-year (2013, 2014, 2016) evaluation of characteristics of 10 rice varieties belonging to various ripeness groups for level, variability and relationships between quantitative morpho-biological traits at the Institute of Rice NAAS are presented.

The aim and tasks of the study. The study objective was to establish the level, variability, correlations between quantitative morpho-biological traits and grain quality parameters, yield capacity, and growing season duration in rice varieties.

Materials and methods. The starting material was 10 rice varieties. They were sown with a SKS-6A seeder at the seeding rate of 7.0 million germinable seeds per hectare. Since a significant amount of plants is lost in rice crops, the plant number was 700 thousand per hectare during the harvest time. The predecessor was alfalfa. The plot area was 5 m²; the space between rows was 15.0 cm. Harvesting was done with a breeding harvester "Yanmar". Plants were analyzed for performance and its structural components (productive tillering capacity, the grain number per panicle, panicle performance, 1000-grain weight) as well as for other morphological (the plant height, panicle length and density, blind-seed disease) and economic (the growing season length, yield capacity) traits. Experimental data were statistically processed by analyses of variance and correlation with calculation of the mean across the experiment and LSD₀₅ and correlation by the BA Dospekhov guidelines.

Results and discussion. The study of rice varieties with various vegetation periods established dependence of the yield capacity, growing season length, plant performance, its structural components (panicle performance, tillering capacity), other quantitative characteristics of plants (the grain number per panicle, 1000-grain weight, panicle length and density, plant height) and the grain quality on the genotype.

We identified varieties - sources of valuable features, which are starting material for rice breeding. We assessed correlations between 13 quantitative traits of rice and demonstrated a significant close relationship of the plant performance with the grain weight from lateral stalks (0.99–0.99% depending on the year) and a significant medium correlation – with the panicle weight (0.49–0.60%) and with the gain weight per panicle (0.40–0.60%).

Conclusions. Performance was found to be directly or indirectly closely associated with the traits of grain weight per panicle and lateral stalks, panicle weight, grains and spikelet numbers per panicle, and density. Thus, selection for any of these traits will facilitate the generation of high-yielding accessions.

To develop accession with a high total yield of grits, one should select weakly chaffy rice forms with a low ratio of grain width to its length, high 1000-grain weight and high whole kernel yield.