Assessment of genetic variability for yield and bran oil content in segregating generations of rice

Two hundred progenies of four crosses of rice were evaluated to study the genetic variability in segregating generations for yield and bran oil content. The data was recorded on five randomly selected plants for ten quantitative and four grain quality characters. The analysis of variance showed significant differences for 14 characters studied, indicating the presence of high genetic variability among the progenies. The estimates of GCV were lower than the respective PCV, indicating the influence of environmental factors on the expression of the traits studied. Plant height (98.3%) showed the highest value of heritability and number of filled grains per panicle showed high genetic advance. However, high heritability coupled with low genetic advance was observed for number of productive tillers per plant, panicle length, kernel length, 1000-grain weight and bran oil content indicating that predominance of non additive gene effects in controlling the character. Hence, the improvement in these characters is not possible through simple selection and requires recurrent selection or heterosis breeding for improvement.