Studies on Medicinal Landraces of Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Five coloured medicinal landraces of rice from Tamil Nadu and Kerala namely Njavara and Chennellu (from Kerala), Kavuni (from Chettinadu, Tamil Nadu) Veeradangan and Kathanellu (from southern districts of Tamil Nadu) and eight cultivated released high yielding varieties of rice viz., MDU 5, ADT 36, ADT 43, ADT 45, TPS 4, ASD 16 and one IRRI variety IR 72 were evaluated for genetic variability studies of nine biometrical characters viz., days to 50% flowering, plant height, panicle length, number of tillers, number of productive tillers per plant panicle exersion, hundred grain weight and single plant yield. The GCV and PCV were high for all the traits viz., plant height, number of filled grains per panicle, and low GCV and PCV was observed for days to 50% flowering. High heritability with high genetic advance was exhibited by all the biometrical traits except for panicle length which exhibited moderate heritability. Moderate genetic advance was exhibited by days to 50% flowering and panicle length. The analysis of variance revealed that significant differences exist among the medicinal landraces and cultivated varieties for all the characters studied. This suggested that wide variability existed among the genotypes for all the characters studied.