Research Article
Alamir Ayenew, Tiegist Dejene
Abstract
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important staple crops consumed by more than half of the world’s population. To estimate the level of genetic variability, association of grain yield with other traits as well as direct and indirect effects of yield attributing traits on lowland rice genotypes. A field experiment was conducted using thirty-six low land rice genotypes during 2017 main rainy season. The experiment was laid out in a simple lattice design under rain-fed condition. The analyses of variances showed significant differences nearly for all traits tested, except harvest index. Maximum genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for number of panicles per plant (19.85) and maximum phenotypic coefficient of variation was reported for number of panicles per plant (23.43) and number of grains per panicle (19.50). High broad sense heritability was observed for plant height (93), biomass yield (89), grain yield (89.5), number of panicles per plant (71.69), panicle length (73), number of spikelets per panicle (62.62) and thousand-seed weight (64.4. The genetic advance as percent of the mean at 5% selection intensity was high for plant height (30.66), number of panicles per plant (35), number of grains per panicle (21.89), biomass yield (27.35) and grain yield (30.89). Genotypic path coefficients evoke that plant height (0.3862), number of panicles per plant (0.2246), number of spikelets per panicle (0.3331), number of grains per panicle (0.2265) and biomass yield (0.3574) exerts comparatively higher positive genotypic direct effects on grain yield.