Association of grain iron and zinc content with yield in high yielding rice cultivars

Iron and zinc deficiencies have been reported to be a food-related primary health problem affecting nearly two billion people worldwide. The brown and red rice genotypes have high grain iron and zinc content and an attempt was made to study the association between these mineral content with grain yield. A field experiment was conducted during wet season 2010 involving fourteen genotypes with different viz., brown rice, red rice and basmati types. These genotypes were tested to estimate phenotypic and genotypic association among grain iron, zinc, yield attributes and grain yield. It was observed that grain yield was positively correlated with number of productive tiller plant⁻¹ and number of grains panicle⁻¹. A positive correlation between iron and zinc content was observed while a negative correlation between grain iron content and grain yield was recorded. Grain iron content inversely related with grain yield plant⁻¹. Path analysis revealed the highest direct effect of test weight on grain yield followed by number of productive tillers plant⁻¹ and iron content.