| Summary: | The landraces of rice provide a wide range of genetic variations and environmental adaptation and act as excellent
genetic resources for crop improvement. Natural germplasm that has been maintained through conservation is in
desperate need of rigorous investigation in order to uncover new genes or alleles to introduce into rice breeding
programmes. Given this context, an investigation was done to determine the degree of genetic divergence and
variability across 31 rice landraces for various productivity, physiological, and grain quality traits. On evaluation of the
mean performance of landraces and the influence of characters in genetic divergence resulted in the identification of
better landraces viz., Vellaikuruvikar, Karupu Kavuni, Kichidi Samba and Athur Kichadi which are better for both grain
yield and quality traits that can be used to create better recombinants, by hybridization. These gene pools could be
used in selective breeding to significantly enhance the agronomic characters. Out of 20 traits that were investigated,15
traits viz., height of the plant, productive tillers per plant, length of panicle, spikelets per panicle, filled grains per
panicle, grain yield per plant, seedling root to shoot ratio, harvest index, head rice recovery, length of the kernel, length
to breadth ratio of kernel, breadth of kernel after cooking, length to breadth ratio of kernel after cooking, gelatinization
temperature and aroma were noted for high heritability and genetic advancement suggesting that additive gene action
predominates, there by opening up a wide range of opportunities for these traits to be improved through simple
phenotypic selection.
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