Genetic Diversity Analysis for Yield and Quality Traits in Rice Cultivars of Manipur and Assam

Abstract

The North–Eastern region of India is blessed with wide variability in rice. The present investigation was carried out with 41 diverse cultivars of rice collected from the farmers’ fields of Manipur and Assam to estimate the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence among the genotypes using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. The germplasm consisted of the popular black rice and some glutinous and non-glutinous rice which are commonly grown in both regions. The experimental materials were evaluated during the Kharif season of 2020-2021, following a randomized block design with three replications at the experimental field of BN College of Agriculture, Biswanath Chariali, Assam. The genotypes exhibited significant differences for all 24 characters under study. The cluster analysis indicated that 41 genotypes were grouped under 12 different clusters and cluster IV was the largest comprising the maximum number of genotypes with 12 genotypes, followed by cluster V with eight genotypes, cluster X with five genotypes, clusters II and XII with four genotypes each, cluster I with two genotypes and clusters III, VI, VII, VIII, IX & XI with one genotype each. Among all the characters studied, grain length exhibited maximum contribution towards divergence followed by kernel length after cooking, grain breadth, 100-grain weight and kernel breadth after cooking. Clusters X and XII showed the maximum inter-cluster distance and the maximum intra-cluster distance was exhibited by cluster XII, indicating the existence of a significant amount of variability within the cluster. The intra-cluster distance ranged from zero (clusters III, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XI) as they consist of a single genotype each to 1146.89 (cluster XII). Hybridization among the genotypes of clusters X and XII is expected to produce better heterotic combinations.