Agro-morphological Characterization and Genetic Diversity in a Mini Core Collection of Aromatic Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Aromatic rice is a special kind of rice known in the World. 20 genotypes of aromatic rice were evaluated at the Agricultural Experimental Farm of University of Calcutta situated in Baruipur, West Bengal to characterize and estimate Genetic Diversity in mini core collection of Aromatic Rice (Oryza sativa L.). Research work has so far been done mainly on Basmati rices giving less importance to the improvement of small and medium grain indigenous aromatic rice genotypes. West Bengal, is a rich source of small and medium grain aromatic rice germplasms with excellent grain quality parameters including aroma. Therefore, enough scope is there for improve these small and medium grain scented germplasms by bringing them in breeding programme with the varieties having desirable traits especially high yield and aroma. In this study, A close relation was maintained by Phenotypic coefficients of variation (PCV) with Genotypic coefficient of variation(GCV) for all the traits though PCV exhibited a bit higher value, this indicates low G×E interaction. Additive gene action was prominent for the traits like plant height, panicle length, number of filled grains per plant and 1000 grain weight. A correlation study showed that grain yield per plant was positive and significantly correlated with panicles per plant and total number of filled grains per plant, emphasizing on these traits help in increasing the grain yield of aromatic rice. Manhattan cluster analysis revealed two distinct clusters i.e. Cluster I(A and B) and Cluster II(A and B), on the basis of the agro-morphological traits taken. Cluster II has the maximum genotypes i.e., 15 and 5 genotypes in Cluster I. The investigation concludes that the total number of filled grains per plant and panicle length influences grain yield. Path analysis revealed that total number of filled grains per plant, panicles per plant and 1000 grain weight directly effects grain yield per plant.