Genetic variability and diversity of grain nutritional and quality traits of unexplored traditional rice landraces for developing biofortifed varieties

Characterization of grain nutritional and quality traits was done in a total of 192 exotic and indigenous rice genotypes were genetically characterized for 16 grain nutritional and quality traits. Substantial genetic variability was observed for all the traits. The coefcient of variation was maximum for favonoid content (87.10%) and minimum for kernel breadth (11.90%). The estimated coefcient of skewness and kurtosis indicated the presence of genetic interaction among the traits. Based on grain shape 4, 37, 31, 65 and 55 rice genotypes were classifed as short slender, short bold, medium slender, long slender and long bold respectively. Further, kernel length was negatively associated with zinc, iron, phenolics and favonoid contents. Amylose content was positively associated with protein, phenolics and favonoid contents suggesting that such relationship could serve as grain indices for indirect selection of genotypes. Four genotypes- Oryza ofcinalis, Oryza latifolia, IC435559 and IC135877 were identifed as donors for zinc and iron contents. The genotypes- IC74637, IC301547, IC301589 and IC301625 were identifed as potential donors for both phenolics and favonoid. Five genotypes viz., IC379109, IC331668, Mancha (M: 1028), Dubraj (D: 1251) and Laxmibhog (L: 708) were identifed for grain yield, quality and nutritional traits. The identifed donors will be useful to develop nutrient dense biofortifed varieties.