Governance of Gene Action and Combining Ability for Certain Grain Quality Traits in Three Diverse Rice (Oryza sativaL.) Growing Ecosystems

Abstract

Traditional varieties or land races from diverse rice growing ecosystems serving as repository of desirable gene pools for rice improvement including rice hybrids have been marginalized or are at the verge of perhaps total genetic erosion. Biotechnology patent systems and intellectual property rights intrinsic with genetically engineered rices weigh in at odds, competing with these good grain qualified traditional rices. Genetic analyses have been made to uncover the supremacy of gene action and combining ability for certain grain quality related physicochemical traits in seven diverse ecogeographical genotypes of 'indica' rice using a 7 ϫ 7 half-diallel cross following Griffing's Model-1, Method-2. Comparative results obtained from 7 parents + 21 F 1 s + 21 F 2 s revealed the involvement of both additive (polygenic) and non-additive (epistasis or interallelic) gene action(s) in the governance of grain quality traits. However, the ratio of σ 2 g /σ 2 s exhibited greater importance O. P. Verma is affiliated with the New Delhi University of Agriculture and Technology, CRS, Ghaghraghat, Bahraich, India. of non-additive genes for all the traits except kernel length in F 1 . This suggests the plausibility of exploitation of heterosis in rice as a self-pollinated crop. Epistasis gene action (interallelic interaction) was found to be more pronounced for all the traits. The genotypes NS 19 (for grain weight), T 21 and IR 24 (for both kernel length and L/B ratio) and Jal Lahri (for protein content) emerged as good general combiners with high 'gca' values. The six specific crosses, viz., Mahsuri/IR 24, NDR 359/Jal Lahri, Sarjoo 52/Jal Lahri, Mahsuri/T 21, Sarjoo 52/NS 19 and Sarjoo 52/T 21, revealed significant 'sca' effects suggesting their role in improvising for certain physico-chemical grain quality traits. These crosses were found to retain at least one parent with high 'gca' value and the other parent having either high, average or low 'gca' effects indicating for the occurrence of both additive as well as non-additive genetic interactions. These findings may be of greater relevance in shuffling and combining the genes/traits between traditional and modern rice varieties (e.g., semi-dwarf, good to moderate tillering, medium maturity and good grain quality with high protein content) in almost all rice growing ecosystems.

Genetic variation for grain yield, yield components and qualitative traits in rice (Oryza sativa L.) mutants

“…Heritability values were high for all of the studied characters, suggesting the greater effectiveness of selection and improvement to be expected for these characters in future breeding programs as the genetic variance is mostly due to additive gene expression. These results are in accordance with the findings of VERMA et al, (2003), HOSSEINI et al, (2005), SHARIFI et al, (2010 a), AHMADIKHAH (2010), SUBBAIAH (2011), KARIM et al, (2007) and DINESH et al, (2011) and LIN et al, (2005). High heritability together with high GCV exhibited by grain yield, number of panicle per plant and panicle weight imply that these characters under additive gene effects and could be relied upon for further selection based on phenotypic performance (VANAJA and BABU, 2008).…”

“…Heritability of rice cooking quality traits has been studied also by some researchers and high heritability was indicated for amyloze content (AC) (SHARIFI et al, 2010 b). High values of heritability were also reported in yield and yield components of rice by VERMA et al, (2003) HOSSEINI et al, (2005), SHARIFI et al, (2010 a), AHMADIKHAH (2010), SUBBAIAH (2011), KARIM et al, (2007) and DINESH et al, (2011). OSMAN et al, (2012) observed high heritability coupled with high genetic advance for tillers per plant, plant height, 1000 grain weight and high heritability with low genetic advance for 50% flowering and days to maturity.…”

Identifying Superior Parents and Recombinants in Rice (Oryza sativa L.) under Salt Affected Soil

“…Therefore, simultaneous improvement in important yield components and other associated traits along with grain yield may be better approach for enhancing yield potential in rice. Similar results have also been reported by Verma et al, (2003); Verma and Srivastava (2004); Saleem et al, (2010); Bagheri and Jelodar (2010) and Saidaiah et al,(2011); Sanghara and Hussain (2012); Tiwari et al, (2014); S. Prasad et al, (2015) and Archana Devi et al, (2017).…”

Genetic Architecture for Yield and Contributing Components in Rice (Oryza sativa L.) under Salt Affected Soil

“…The high yielding lines discussed above having high mean performance for grain yield and for several other characters may be recommended for use as tester for developing high yielding rice hybrids in target environment that is salt affected soil (Pires et al, 2015). The success of selection in improving plant characters depends mainly on presence of substantial genetic variability (Mall et al, 2005) and nature of heritability and gene action (Verma et al, 2003). In experiment 1 the action estimates of genotype and phenotype coefficient of variation and High heritability in broad sense along with high genetic advance in percent of mean were recorded for biological yield per plant while L:B ratio should high estimates of another phenotypic coefficient of variation and high heritability in broad sense along with high genetic advance in percent of mean and showed moderate estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation.…”