Agro-morphological characterization of african rice accessions (Oryza glaberrima) in rainfed and irrigated cultural conditions

Abstract

African rice is used for its resistance to diseases and stresses, to improve Asian species. Unfortunately, its culture is greatly neglected in favor of Asian varieties and because of this only many African rice varieties is literally on the way of extinction. Due to its potential, it is important to preserve this agricultural resource. This work aims primarily at doing agro-morphological characterization of African rice accessions in the perspective to identify the useful varieties of Oryza glaberrima for future exploitation. This study was carried out at the Africa Rice Center sites in Republic of Benin and Senegal, for this 235 African rice accessions including two controls (CG14, NERICA4) have been observed during rainfed (Benin) and irrigated (Senegal) culture using “Augmented design in randomized complete block” method. Result of study revealed that all accessions completed their life cycle; among the tested accessions, 22 were reported as O. sativa and interspecific accessions while reset 213 accessions were phenotypically identified as O.glaberrima. The discriminate variables of PCA (based on the 9 main parameters) of 213 O.glaberrima accessions, leaded to a dendrogram with two clusters: Cluster I (114 accessions) is characterized by the precocity of their cycle: It can be used as an important trait for variety selection. Cluster II (99 accessions including CG14 and NERICA4) is characterized by the strong production yield. These results allow us to have a collection of O. glaberrima accessions in order to study not only its genetic diversity but also to evaluate more potential of these varieties for exploiting their genetic and nutritional advantage for the development of new varieties.