Estimation of variability, diversity and correlation studies with respect to different agro-morphological traits in traditional rice of West Bengal

Landraces of rice containing 51 traditional rice cultivars of three districts viz. Nadia, 24 Parganas (N) and Murshidabad of West Bengal, India, collected from Zonal Adaptive Research Station, Krishnagar, Nadia, were evaluated for 11 quantitative and 6 qualitative characters. A significant amount of genetic variation was displayed for most of the traits examined. Coefficient of variation was more than 10% for the characters like grain length/breadth ratio and no. of grains panicle⁻¹ and it was more than 5% in case of the characters like plant height(seedling), culm length, culm number and grain length. Leaf length was positively correlated with leaf breadth (r=0.784), culm length (r=0.439) and panicle length (r=0.431). Plant height showed positive correlation with flag leaf angle(r=0.363), culm diameter (r=0.740), culm no. (r=0.784) and panicle length (r=0.783), indicating the importance of plant height in improving the panicle length. Grain length is significantly correlated with kernel weight (r=0.508) and grain weight (r=0.490).