Genetic Diversity of Gora Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Landraces of Chotanagpur Plateau Region in Eastern India

The rice cultivars grown in the uplands of the state of Jharkhand, India are traditionally known as gora rice. These cultivars possess many important traits such as high seedling vigour, deeper roots and drought tolerance. In this study, a collection of gora landraces were assessed for morpho-genetic diversity using SSR markers. Morpho-agronomic analysis indicated that although seed morphological features are traditionally used for differentiating landraces, based on overall morpho-agronomic features also the cultivars could be differentiated as found in case of black gora. A genetic diversity analysis using 39 SSR markers detected considerable gene diversity (0.52) within gora cultivars. The white gora accessions were classified as indica, and rest including black gora, brown gora and other gora accessions belonged to aus group. This germplasm set provides scope for further genetic studies on multiple abiotic stress tolerance traits such as drought, submergenece and phosphorus starvation and traits for aerobic adaptation.