Identification of Rice Genotypes for Drought Tolerance Based on Root Characters.

ABSTRACT

Climate change needs us to look at various alternatives for more drought tolerant and tougher strains. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important food crop of the world; drought stress is a serious limiting factor to rice production and yield stability in rainfed areas. In order to design efficient varieties with virtues of drought tolerance and high yielding ability is necessary. Root system plays an important role under drought conditions. Among all the genotypes NLR 33671 showed highest root length (27.6cm) under moisture stress condition followed by NLR 3010 (24.5cm), NLR 40059 (23.6 cm), TELLAHAMSA (23.5 cm) ,NLR 40049 (23.5), NLR 3098 (23.5) were showed significantly superior mean values than remaining genotypes for most of the root traits included in this study. Therefore, these genotypes can be considered as drought resistance varieties. Whereas NLR 40054 (14.35 cm), BPT 5204 (14.55 cm), NLR 40045 (15 cm) and NLR 30491 (15.19cm) recorded lowest root length these can be consider as susceptible ones. The effects of drought stress on rice productivity were explicitly parameterized and addressed in the present study.