Heterosis studies for yield and its component traits in Hybrid Rice {Oryza sativa L.} under coastal saline condition
1P. Arunkumar and 2R. Narayanan
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar – 608002 (India) Corresponding Author E-mail: arunagrigene@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Salinity is a major abiotic constraint faced by farmers in most rice cultivating areas of the world and improving seed yield in rice is the most important breeding objective. In the current study, twenty four hybrids were developed by crossing six lines with four testers to determine the better parent and standard parent heterotic effects for yield and its component traits of rice crop under coastal-saline conditions. The analysis of variance {line x tester} revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits studied. Among the twenty four crosses, eight hybrids show superior performance for seed yield plant-1 over standard parent from those three hybrids exhibiting desirable high value of standard heterosis for seed yield plant-1 viz ADT 43x CSR 36, ADT 42x CSR 36 and ADT 37x CSR 36. These three hybrids also show high per se performance for the majority of the traits studied along with short stature plants and early flowering. So, these crosses were considered as superior crosses and further utilized in the breeding programme.