HERITABILITY AND CHARACTER CORRELATION AMONG SOME RICE GENOTYPES FOR YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS

Abstract

Morphological characterization of 15 rice breeding lines using 15 agronomic traits was done in field experiment in a Randomized Complete Block Design in the Research farm  of the National Cereals Research Institute Sub – station at Amakama for two years. The aims were to determine the extent of variability existing among rice lines, the relationship existing between yield and other traits so as to identify few traits that could serve as good yield components to improve rice yield and the heritability of the traits for effective utilization of rice lines for breeding purposes. Correlation coefficient and estimates of broadsense heritability of the 15 characters associated with grain yield for the combined data showed wide significant genetic variability (p<0.0001) amongst the genotypes. Of all the characters evaluated, only number of grains per plant had the highest and significant correlation with grain yield (r=0.7643). Days to booting and days to 50% heading had negative but high correlation. All the characters evaluated showed high heritability estimates ranging from 93 – 99.8764. The use of forward selection multiple regression analysis revealed number of grains per plant, weight of roots and days to 50% heading as the most important yield component traits that could be used to improve rice yield. The study showed that number of grains per plant can be used as the most reliable selection index for yield improvement in rice since it is the most contributing attribute to yield.