GENETIC DIVERSITY OF RICE (Oryza sativa L.) LOCAL ACCESSIONS BASED ON MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERISTICS

Abstract

The present study was carried out on 72 accessions of rice (Oryza sativa L.) plotted in augmented design at Institute of Agricultural Bioteclmology and Genetic Resources (lABGR), National Agriculture Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad. All accessions were local, out of which 70 were wild and 2 commercial varieties, evaluated. The germplasm were provided by gene bank of lABOR, NARC, Islamabad. All of these accessions completed life cycle successfully and were analyzed for morphological and moleculru- (SDS-PAGE) level to ascertain the extent of genetic diversity among the accessions. At morphological level 19 different characteristics were studied, out of which 7 were qualitative and 12 were quantitative characteristics. For qualitative characters most significant level of diversity was observed in seed coat color (frequency 8, 11.11 %). Significant level of variability was seen in flag leaf (Frequency 4, 5.55%) and panicle exertion (frequency 4, 5.55%). Data regarding quantitative traits were analyzed by descriptive statistics and association runong various traits was estimated by cOlTelation analysis. Descriptive statistics of quantitative traits revealed that considerable extent of diversity exists in six quantitative traits. Plant height (113.7 ± 33.72%), productive tillers per plant (7.5 ± 37.25%), panicle length (25.3cm ± 19.2 1 %), spikelets per panicle (11.5 ± 17.7%), 100-seed weight, (1.3 ± 46.16%) and straw yield (95.2 ± 18.8%). Results based on correlation analysis indicated that these 12 characters ruoe associated positively as well negatively. Seeds protein banding profiles were observed by using SDS-PAGE analysis, which showed considerable variation for glutelin and prolamin bands. Variability was seen in the whole germplasm on the basis of acidic glutelin (a3 , a4) bands, basic glutelin (~3) band and prolamin (13a, b) bands. SDS-PAGE analysis showed stability of the characters under consideration i.e. free from environmental stresses, phylogenetic relationship among the accessions, diversity among accessions at gene level, sorting the accessions of the same locality, variation occurred in the accessions by out breeding, intimation for the selection of accessions with best performance (diversity level).