Genetic Variability Analysis for Cooking Quality Traits in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Cooking and nutritive traits in twenty mutant BPT 5204 rice were studied for variances, heritability and genetic advance. The analysis of variance was found to be highly significant for all the Quality traits in rice indicating that enough variability is present in the studied material. The Heritability was found to be highest for volume expansion ratio, Head rice recovery, hulling & milling percentage and kernel length after cooking (KLAC) while lowest for L/B ratio. Among the desirable quality character head rice recovery (24.53%; 25.99%), milling percentage (24.99%; 23.11%), hulling percentage (24.46%; 22.33%) showed high GCV and PCV among quality traits of rice. Almost all the characters showed a little variation between PCV and GCV revealing little influence of the environment in the expression of these traits. The characters showing high GCV and PCV were found to be highly heritable coupled with high genetic advance. These characters are governed by additive gene action and one should go for direct selection for these traits.