SSR MARKER-BASED PHENOTYPIC EVALUATION AND MOLECULAR DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF SOME RICE GENOTYPES FOR DROUGHT PRONE AREAS

Evaluated fifteen rice genotypes on the basis of different genetic parameters and molecular variation by involving simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Different morpho-physiological characters viz. first flowering, 50% flowering,  80% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, total tillers hill^-1, effective tillers hill^-1, panicle length, filled grains panicle^-1, unfilled grains panicle^-1, 1000 seed weight and grain yield five plant^-1 were studied. In our study we found that all of the traits showed higher PCV compared to their corresponding GCV, which indicates environmental effect on those traits. Three SSR markers (RM3452, RM336 and RM351) were used to assess the genetic diversity. A total of 19 alleles were detected among 15 rice genotypes. The average number of allele per locus was 6.333. The polymorphism information content (PIC) values varied from 0.677 (RM3452) to 0.804 (RM3452). The genetic diversity determined in this study will help in the selection of mutants. Out of 15 genotypes five genotypes G1- PNR-519, G2- NERICA-4, G3- Bashed, G4-E-02, G5- BRRI dhan48 were selected as early maturing and high yielding lines.