Morpho-Agronomic and molecular characterization of gobindabhog, a traditional aromatic rice of West Bengal, India

The agro-morphological characterization of Gobindabhog, a traditional non-Basmati type aromatic rice of lower gangetic plains and rahr (red and laterite) region of West Bengal was done at B.C.K.V., Kalyani, West Bengal, India during kharif season of 2011, 2012 and 2013 following DUS test guidelines of Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV&FRA). The variety had long statured (scale 7, 130–140 cm height) plants with no anthocyanin colouration on leaf blade, sheath, nodes and internodes; which had late heading (110–115 days) and late maturity (scale 7, 140–150 days). The flower was bi-sexual including six yellow coloured anthers, and an ovary with white/yellowish-white feathery stigma. The lemma and palea of grain were straw or goldenyellow in colour and the grains were awnless, short in length (6.1 mm) with very low test weight (10.17 g). The kernels were short-bold (length 3.97 mm and width 1.95 mm) in shape with white colour, which had low amylose content (17.9%), medium gelatinization temperature (alkali value 3.3) and medium-strong aroma. 23 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used for DNA amplifi cation profile to develop molecular base-pair length database of Gobindabhog rice against non-aromatic international check variety IR 36 in the study. Among them, two markers (RM 341 and RM 339) made greater genetic distance (95.33 vs. 174.97 bp and 180.75 vs. 143.09 bp, respectively) between Gobindabhog and IR 36.