GENETIC VARIABILITY FOR MORPHOLOGICAL PARAMETERS IN F2 SEGREGATING POPULATIONS OF RICE

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate genetic variation among four parents and their 12 F2 populations for various morphological attributes at The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during 2012 rice crop growing season. Significant variation among the genotypes was manifested for all the traits studied. F2 population Kashmir-Basmati/Kangni-27 manifested minimum days to heading (100) while the F2 population Dilrosh/Kashmir-Basmati took minimum days to maturity (135). F2 population Kashmir-Basmati /Dilrosh had the longest panicles (29.5 cm) while F2 population Dilrosh/ Kashmir-Basmati excelled for number of primary (12.4) and secondary (35.9) branches panicle-1. Maximum broad sense heritability for panicle length (0.85), number of primary branches (0.87) and secondary branches (0.93) panicle-1 was observed for F2 populations Kashmir-Basmati/Dilrosh, Dilrosh/Kangni-27 and Kashmir-Basmati/TN-1, respectively. F2 population Kashmir-Basmati /Dilrosh showed the highest genetic advance for panicle length (22%). F2 population Dilrosh/Kangni-27 manifested maximum genetic advance (34.7%) for primary branches panicle-1 while TN-1/ KashmirBasmati revealed the highest value (48.8%) of genetic advance for secondary branches panicle-1. The above mentioned segregating populations on account of better performance for maturity and panicle traits could be advanced further to develop desirable recombinant inbred lines and rice cultivars.