Genetic Evaluation of Advanced Breeding Lines of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) for Grain Yield and Nutrient Characters in Upland Condition

The present study was carried out at Agricultural Research Station, Mugad, Karnataka during kharif 2023 using augmented block design in upland condition using sixty advanced breeding lines of rice (Oryza sativa L.) and six checks viz., IR64, BPT 5204, DRR Dhan 45, Kagisali and Chittimutyalu to evaluate genetic variability for yield component traits and grain quality traits, to evaluate the association of yield with quality traits and to validate the genotypes for quality traits using SSR markers. Analysis of variance revealed the presence of significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits under study. Genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variances were high for number of productive tillers per hill and grain yield depicting the wide range of variation for these traits. High heritability allied with high genetic advance over mean was seen for the traits like plant height, number of tillers per hill, number of productive tillers per hill, panicles per sqm, grain yield, grain iron content, zinc content and protein content indicating the preponderance of additive gene action and least influence of environment on these traits, thus, they possess better scope for improvement through selection. The correlation analysis revealed the negative significant association of grain yield with grain zinc content and negative non-significant association with all other quality traits. Validation of the putative markers is generally carried out to check the reproducibility of those markers. SSR markers RM211 and RM242 were validated for grain iron content, RM303 and RM234 for grain zinc content and RM23914, RM1235, RM219, RM206 and RM1337 for grain protein content. Therefore, these markers can be further used for effective biofortification of rice.