Designer rice: New concept for climate change

Rice is the most important cereal crop that has been referred as global grain because of its use as prime staple food in about 100 countries of the world. Chhattisgarh popularly known as ‘Rice Bowl of India’. The rising demand saturation of cultivable field and climate change cause a supply shortage of a crop in the near future. The impact of climate change has serious implications for productivity and production of crops, thus threatening our food security and health and livelihood of millions. By the near 2025, about 785 million tonnes of paddy which is 70% more than the current production is needed to meet the growing demand. To achieve the expected yield and hike the productivity of rice, it becomes necessary to design rice according to change climate. The newly designed plant type was mainly based on the results of simulation modeling and new traits were mostly morphological. The proposed new plant type has low tillering capacity, few unproductive tillers, more filled grains per panicle, plant height of 90-100 cm, thick and sturdy stems, leaves that are thick, dark green and erect, a vigorous root system, 100-135 days crop duration and increased harvest index. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of designer varieties to sustain and enhance the productivity and production of agricultural crops even in changing climate regimes

Collection and conservation of extinct land races of rice from Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh

An exploration trip was conducted during kharif 2012-13 for the collection of rare and valuable rice land races from different blocks of raigarh district. A total of 97 landraces were collected by the exploration team from 41 villages of four different blocks viz., Tamnar, Gharghoda, Lailunga and Dharamjaigarh from Raigarh district. Based on the morphological and quality characters the diverse landraces were collected. The valuable landrace conserved by farmers  namely, Borojhari,  Boonde, Geeta, Saria, Thadvel, Bathras, Agiasal, Ratanchuri, Goirmal, Pangudi, 90 No., Ganga and Sonakathi. These valuable landraces possesses the characterstics such as fine grain, aroma, red pericarp, early maturity, submergence tolerance and good head rice recovery. The collected landraces will be utilized for the genetic enhancement and value addition of existing varieties of rice. Thus, it may be helpful not only in conserving the genetic resources but also exploit their potential in terms of yield and other quality characters

Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Aromatic Short Grain Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Genotypes using PCA and Cluster Analysis

A population panel of 90 aromatic short grain rice accessions were evaluated for 26 agro-morphological and quality traits using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis for the determination of genetic variation pattern, and identification of the major traits contributing to the diversity. First six principal components (PCs) exhibited Eigenvalue more than one with 74.4 per cent of total variability among the 26 characters. The PC1 showed 24.55% while, PC2, PC3, PC4, PC5 and PC6 exhibited 15.48 %, 11.48 %, 9.96 %, 7.89 % and 5.12 % variability, respectively among the accessions for the traits under study. The results of PCA suggested that characters such as effective tillers per plant, number of spikelets per panicle, number of filled spikelets per panicle, spikelet fertility %, milling %, head rice recovery %, kernel length and kernel length after cooking were the principal discriminatory characteristics of aromatic short grain accessions of rice. Seven divergent clusters were formed by UPGMA clustering method. The pattern of group constellation proved the existence of significant amount of variability. The intra cluster distance ranged from 0.00 (cluster VI) to 6.33 (cluster V). The inter cluster distance was maximum between cluster VI and VII (18.854) and minimum between cluster II and cluster IV (7.673). To realize much variability and high heterotic effect, parents should be selected from two clusters having wider inter-cluster distance. Considering the importance of genetic distance and relative contribution of characters towards total divergence, the present study indicated that parental lines selected from cluster VI (IGSR -3-1-5) for number of spikelets per panicle, number of filled spikelets per panicle, grain length, kernel length and length breadth ratio, and from cluster VII (Khasakani, Kolijoha) for effective tillers per plant, 1000 grain weight, grain yield per plant, harvest index, grain breadth, length breadth ratio after cooking and elongation index could be used in crossing programmes to achieve desired segregants