Study of morphological diversity of traditional aromatic rice landraces (Oryza sativa L.) collected from Assam, India

Abstract

Rice is one of the major cereal grain consumed more than half of the world’s population. Aromatic rice is one of the most widely accepted rice due its pleasant aroma. Traditionally, many varieties of aromatic rice are grown by the farmers of Assam maintaining a diverse gene pool. In the present study, morphological variation was studied in 22 aromatic rice landraces using qualitative and quantitative traits. Keteki Joha is very popular indigenous aromatic rice grown in a small pocket of Assam for its high yield. Though Kola Kunkuni Joha is relatively smaller grain size and low yield but have high demand due to its high aroma as compared to other landraces. Significant positive correlations was occurred at 0.05 level between kernel length and seed weight with seed width (r = 0.6734*) and (0.5881*) as well as seed weight with kernel width (r = 0.5433*). The correlation between seed width and kernel width (0.9663**) showed significantly positive relationship which shown at 0.01 level. Characterization of aromatic rice landraces of Assam would be a boon for the breeders for designing further rice improvement programme.