Investigation on frequency distribution of traditional rice landraces for drought tolerance at seedling stage

Abstract

Drought is the major constraint, adversely affecting the rice productivity in India. Emerging climate change scenario demands potential donors to develop climate resilient genotypes in order to increase the productivity of rice. In the present study, 85 traditional rice landraces and 15 improved cultivars were screened for drought tolerance potential under hydroponics, along with IR 64 and IR 64 Drt 1 as drought susceptible and tolerant checks respectively. Moisture stress was induced using PEG 6000 over a range of osmotic potentialsviz.,(-) 1.0 Mpa, (-) 1.25 Mpa and (-)1.5 Mpafor a period of 30 days. Fifty two landraces survived under maximum osmotic potential of (-) 1.5 Mpa. Based on the phenotypic scores, six genotypes viz., Kuliyadichan, Rajalakshmi, Sahabhagidhan, Nootripathu, Chandaikar and Mallikar were identified to have higher degree of drought tolerance .. The investigation concluded that these six genotypes can serve as potential donors for developing drought resilient rice cultivars.

Keywords

• rice landraces
• hydroponics
• poly ethylene glycol
• frequency distribution
• normality