Genetic Diversity of Recombinant Inbred Lines of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) with Long Sterile Lemma

Abstract

Genetic diversity is essential for any crop improvement program because it aids in the development of superior recombinants. A large number of recombinant inbred lines (RILs) were developed from a cross between MTU 7029 and Nilachal. Out of those large numbers of RILs, 87 were selected to record the agronomic parameters. All the characters showed high significant variation among the RILs. Data of nine quantitative characters were used for D2 statistics to see the genetic diversity of the RILs with long sterile lemma. Genotypes were classified into 13 clusters. Cluster 4 accommodated highest number of genotypes (23) followed by cluster 1 (17 genotypes), cluster 2 (15 genotypes) and cluster 3 (14 genotypes). The cluster with the maximum intra-cluster distance was in cluster 9 (841.90) followed by cluster 1 (668.82), cluster 2 (654.19), cluster 6 (646.08), cluster 4 (571.57), cluster 3 (497.21), cluster 8 (414.22), cluster 5 (380.01), and cluster 7 (205.18). The maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster 10 and 11 followed by cluster 9 and 11, cluster 8 and 10, cluster 8 and 9 and cluster 11 and 13. Cluster 4 had comparatively high values for most of the characters and it had maximum value for grain yield. Thus, the genotypes accommodated in this cluster seem to be promising for many characters. Maximum contribution towards the divergence was reported for number of filled grains per panicle (79.18%) followed by plot yield (11.63%), length of sterile lemma (4.31%) and number of panicles per hill (2.06%). This novel finding of this study may be used for selection of genotypes for hybridization program for rice improvement.