Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, 753 006, India
**Present address: All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project, Hyderabad-500 030.
*Part of the thesis submitted by the senior author for award of Ph.D. degree of Utkal University.
The nature of inheritance of eight morphological characters—undulate rachis, verticillate rachis, neck leaf, polyhusk, beaked lemma, liguleless nature, glabrous leaf blade and occurrence of anthocyanin pigmentation in leaf blade was studied in seven cross combinations.
The expression of neck leaf, polyhusk, verticillate rachis and undulate rachis was governed by a recessive gene in each case and presence of awn was governed by a single dominant gene. Glabrous condition of leaf blade was governed by a single recessive gene in the cross involving japonica parent and by two genes in cross involving indica parents. Occurrence of beaked lemma was governed by a pair of duplicate genes and the liguleless condition was found to be governed by two to three pairs of recessive genes either duplicate or complementary in nature.
Two genes, one inhibitory in function, control anthocyanin colouration in the leaf blade in two crosses.
Three cases of linkage are reported In two cases the cross over values conform to earlier reports. These genes have been included in Group II (P1, Lg) and group XII (g1, An) respectively. A cross over value of 21⋅6 per cent obtained between gene for glabrous leaf blade (gl) and beaked lemma (bd) is in close confirmity with the value (18 per cent) reported from Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack.
