Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore- 641 003, India.
One hundred and ten rice genotypes representing different origins were studied for genetic diversity on the basis of quantitative and quality traits using Mahalanobis D2 statistics and SSR marker analysis. Out of twenty nine clusters obtained, cluster III was the largest with twenty five genotypes, cluster IV had eighteen genotypes, cluster I had sixteen genotypes, cluster II had fourteen genotypes, cluster VI had five genotypes, cluster V and XIV had four genotypes each and cluster XV had three genotypes while the remaining twenty one clusters had single genotype each. Cluster XXV exhibited the maximum mean values for number of productive tillers per plant and number of secondary branches per panicle. Two distinct groups resulted from SSR marker data analysis. Among the 50 primers, RM 401, RM 536, RM 5862, RM 7575 and RM 20A produced maximum number of alleles. All the IR lines were clustered in cluster II (eleven) and all the RR lines (six) and ASD lines (six) were clustered in cluster I and also confirmed by molecular study. The highest contribution towards genetic divergence was recorded by water uptake followed by L/B ratio, volume expansion ratio, linear elongation ratio and gel consistency. Hence, these traits may be used as selection parameters in the segregating generations.
