CORRELATION ANALYSIS OF VARIOUS METRIC TRAITS WITH GRAIN YIELD AND HERITABILITY ESTIMATION IN RICE GENOTYPES

The present research was carried out to analyze phenotypic correlation (r) among quantitative traits and also to estimate heritability in broad sense (h2) in 20 rice genotypes for various yield and its associated traits. Analysis of variances demonstrated that genotypes differed highly significantly (P? 0.01) for all the studied traits, registering the significant genetic variability among the genotypes for further evaluation. There was significant positive association of grain yield with panicle length (r= 0.24*), seeds panicle-1 (r= 0.26*), seed length (r= 0.25*), seed width (r= 0.26*) and seed index (r= 0.37**). On the basis of correlation results, it is observed that panicle length, seeds panicle-1, seed length, seed width and seed index are most important traits that contributed directly to yield. Therefore, a cultivar with higher extent of these characters could either be selected from present genetic stock or evolved through genetic improvement for yield in rice. High heritability estimates were observed for days to flowering (h2 = 84.41%), plant height (h2 = 96.83%), tillers plant-1 (h2 = 84.21%), seed fertility (h2 = 70.63%), seeds panicle-1 (h2 = 99.32%), seed length (h2 = 95.83%), seed index (h2 = 87.84%), flag leaf length (h2 = 78.66%) and grain yield plant-1 (h2 = 69.60%), whereas moderate heritability was found for panicle length (h2 = 34.22%) and seed width (h2 = 50.00%). High heritability values for these traits indicate that the variation observed was largely under genetic control and was less affected by environmental factors, indicating the importance of additive gene action for these traits. Therefore, the improvement of these traits can be made through direct phenotypic selection.