Grain yield in wheat is the resultant of several plant attributes. It is very important to assess heritable variation involved in the inheritance of these attributes in addition to find the best combining genotypes. For this purpose, the present study involving 5 × 5 full diallel analysis was performed. Twenty F 1 hybrids along with their parents (9797, 9801, 9802, were planted in field using randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications in the research area of Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during 2015-2016. Plant characters like plant height, flag leaf area, spike length, No. of fertile tillers per plant, No. of grains per spike, No. of spikelets per spike, 1000 grain weight and grain yield per plant were studied in this experiment. Mean squares due to general combining ability (GCA) were highly significant for all the traits except for spike length for which GCA effects were significant. Mean squares due to specific combining ability (SCA) and reciprocal combining ability (RCA) were highly significant for all the characters studied. GCA variance was higher than the SCA variance for spike length and No. of grains per spike exhibiting the predominant role of additive genetic variation in the inheritance of these traits. However, for the characters like plant height, flag leaf area, No. of fertile tillers per plant, No. of spikelets per spike, 1000 grain weight and grain yield per plant, the value of SCA variance was higher than the value of GCA variance showing non additive gene action for these How to cite this paper: Parveen, N., Kanwal, A., Amin, E., Shahzadi, F., Aleem, S., Tahir

Rice is the staple food for half of the world"s population, however, its edible grain part is deficient in essential micronutrients, especially Fe and Zn. Breeding for micronutrient dense rice demands exploration of available genetic diversity for grain Fe, Zn and β-carotene contents. In this study, we analysed brown and polished grain samples of 26 traditional rice genotypes for Fe and Zn concentration. Fe concentration varied from 13.23 ppm to 45.83 ppm and 1.10 ppm to 36.45 ppm in brown and polished rice, respectively. Whereas, Zn concentration in brown and polished rice ranged from 18.67 ppm to 38.01 ppm and 5.86 ppm to 23.88 ppm, respectively. The landraces had higher Fe and Zn contents than improved varieties and advance uniform lines. Significant positive correlation was present between Fe and Zn concentration in brown (r = 0.694, P < 0.01) and polished rice (r = 0.533, P < 0.01). Fe concentration was greatly reduced by the polishing process than Zn concentration and approved varieties lost less Fe and Zn contents than advance uniform lines. Minimal levels of beta-carotene were detected in rice genotypes indicating need for genetic modifications to enhance pro-vitamin A contents in rice endosperm.

In the face of a rapidly swelling global population, demands to develop high yielding and climate-resilient rice varieties are at a peak. The productivity of traditional basmati cultivars is limiting due to their cultivation in a specific geographical region, requiring genetic modifications to make this premium rice more productive without compromising the quality attributes. Here, we developed a candidate basmati advance uniform line by combining marker-assisted selection with conventional breeding. A cross was made between Basmati 515 and IRBB 66 followed by the pedigree method up to F5, where a uniform recombinant inbred line was hybridized with PK 1121 Aromatic followed by three backcrosses and pedigree method up to BC3F5. Gene pyramiding for aroma, dense and erect panicles, grain length and width was achieved through four gene-linked markers (BADEX7-5, DEP1, GW8-indel and FMGS-7). The newly developed line was named “BLB 18-5001” predominately harbored the agronomic and quality characteristics of Basmati 515 along with panicle architecture and grain dimension traits from IRBB 66 and PK 1121 Aromatic, respectively. The BLB 18-5001 outperformed all parental genotypes in thousand-grain weight (28.5 g), grain yield (4.7 tons/hectare), average grain length (9.22 mm) and cooked grain length (19.5 mm). Field evaluation under natural field conditions across two consecutive growing seasons revealed superior agronomic and quality attributes of BLB 18-5001, suggesting an unprecedented genetic potential to meet the future varietal demands. In conclusion, the newly developed basmati line possesses superior attributes to approved rice cultivars along with semi-erect and dense panicles and could improve the limiting productivity of basmati rice.