Genetic analysis of superior double haploid rice lines developed from anther culture

Abstract

Rice is the most important food commodity in Indonesia. The need for rice continues to increase with the population increase. Plant breeding‘s objective to obtain high-yielding varieties is an attempt to increase production plateu. Biotechnology is one of the breeding aproaches using tissue culture and genetic engineering techniques. The availability and diversity of plant genetic resources are important factors to develop high yielding varieties with desirable traits. This study was aimed to investigate the agronomic characters of double haploid lines developed from anther culture, evaluate genetic diversity, phenotypic variations and broad sense heritability of double haploid lines developed from anther culture, and to obtain rice genotypes potential as superior lines. Analysis of 18 genotypes showed there was diversity of agronomic characters among the rice double haploid genotypes. Characters of dry weight-based grain (yield) per hectare and the number of empty grain per panicle had high level of genetic variability, while other characters had rather low to low level of genetic variability. Yield per hectare in KP44223 line was the highest (4537.8 kg / ha or 4.5 tons / ha) among the lines, even higher than that of conrol varieties, Ciherang and Celebes. The characters of plant height, flowering age, harvesting time, panicle length, number of empty grain/ panicle, 1000 grain weight and yield per hectarehad high broad sense heritability, suggested that those characters can be used as selection characters to improve crop performance.