Assessment of Genetic Variability, Character Association of Yield Related Traits and Genetic Divergence Study in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

The present study was carried out to assess the genetic diversity for various rice traits and their association with yield during Kharif 2023-24 at Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh), India. 64 rice genotypes were evaluated on the basis of various morphological traits in a field experiment. Significant variation were observed among genotypes for all the traits studied. The results indicated that the highest genetic variability was observed in case of plant height, days to maturity, numbers of spikelets per panicle and biological yield per plant. The phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the traits studied. High GCV and PCV were observed for grain yield per plant. Broad sense heritability varied from 98.03% in case of days to maturity to 61.45% for harvest index. Significant positive correlation with grain yield was also noticed for harvest index (0.475), test weight (0.503), number of spikelet per panicle (0.827) and biological yield per plant (0.942). All the traits were also studied through path coefficient analysis and highest positive direct effect on grain yield per plant was recorded by biological yield per plant (0.942) followed by harvest index (0.267). The dendrogram of cluster analysis grouped 64 rice genotypes into seven clusters. Cluster II incorporated the highest number of genotypes. Data from this study exhibited the presence of sufficient genetic diversity among the genotypes which can be employed in future rice breeding programmes.