Amylose content and grain appearance traits in rice genotypes

Amylose content (AC) and grain appearance traits of rice (Oryza sativa L.) represent a major problem of rice marketing in many rice producing areas in the world. In Uganda, cooking, eating and appearance qualities remain undefined in the rice breeding programme. The objective this study was to determine amylose content of rice genotypes, and its relationship with grain appearance traits; and mode of its inheritance in selected rice genotypes. Forty genotypes were planted in two seasons (2015B and 2016A), in alpha lattice design at National Crop Resource Research Institute in Uganda. Seven parents, involving 3 low and 4 intermediate amylose content genotypes selected in 2015B season,were crossed in a half diallel,and the F1 were advanced to F2 generation, which together with parents were planted in the field. Amylose content (AC), kernel width (KW) and kernel length (K/L) to width ratio were affected by both genetic effects and genotype by season (G x S) interactions; while kernel length was mainly affected by genetic factors. Genotypes were grouped into low, intermediate and high amylose content categories depending on the environment where the genotypes were grown. Three genotypes (Namche 1, P62H17 and 1190) had no significant responsesin amylose content in different growing seasons, suggesting that these genotypes were stable. Amylose content correlated weakly and negatively with physical appearance quality traits of the grain; implying that improvement in amylose content would not affect grain size and shape.There were significant differences (P<0.001) among parents for general combining ability (GCA) and among crosses for specific combining ability (SCA) (P<0.5) for amylose content; indicating that both additive and non-additive gene actions were responsible for the inheritance of AC. However, the variance component of GCA was larger than for the SCA, implying that the inheritance of amylose content was more conditioned by the additive gene effect.Key words: Combining ability, Oryza sativa, Uganda