Comparative evaluation of quality characteristics of 49 exotic and 75 indigeous accessions revealed that, in general, exotic accessions had higher mean hulling, milling and head-rice recovery than the indigenous accessions. Nevertheless, indigenous collection had high variability for head-rice recovery (cv 21.7%). In general, the magnitude and pattern of variation for these characteristics were similar in both the collections. Although indigenous accessions had more variation for kernel size and shape, exotic accessions had higher mean kernel length. There was predominance of long bold kernels in exotic collections. Alkali value and water uptake varied more in exotics. Majority of the exotic accessions (33) were of low to intermediate alkali score (high to intermediate gelatinization temperature) while 36% of the indigenous accessions had high alkali value low gelatinization temperature. In both the collections, kernel linear elongation had similar magnitude of low variability (cv 4.4–4.8%), however, indigenous accessions showed higher mean kernel elongation (1.74 ± 0.01) than the exotics (1.66 + 0.01). Several potential accessions which could be utilized in the rice quality improvement programme were identified and characteristics of 14 accessions with multiple desirable traits are presented.
Germplasm, quality, rice, Oryza sativa L
