Genetic Divergence among rice (Oryza sativa L.) Landraces of Odisha Based on economically important metric traits

The present study was undertaken to investigate the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence among 55 rice Landraces and nine varieties of Odisha based on economically important metric traits. Based on the relative magnitude of D² values, 64 rice cultivars were grouped into 11 clusters. Among different traits, grain length to breadth ratio (28.79%), 100-grain weight (13.02%) and straw yield per plant (9.66%) had more contribution towards the total divergence. The cluster means indicated that none of the clusters contained genotypes with all the desirable characters which could be directly selected and utilized. The grouping of most of the landraces of Odisha and improved cultivars of rice in one cluster (II) indicates the use of these landraces in the blood of the improved cultivars. Twelve cultivars (eight high yielders and four low yielders) were chosen from different clusters for molecular characterization. Primers RM413 and RM480 were informative (PIC value=0.97) and could distinguish all the cultivars.