Assessment of diversity amongst a set of aromatic rice genotypes from India

Abstract

Both the level of genetic diversity and the number of rice genotypes preserved in rice germplasm banks are high but apart from the basmati the rest of the indigenous aromatic genotypes in India have received little attention. Hence, there is an urgent need to catalogue, characterize and conserve the non-basmati indigenous aromatic rice genotypes, which are inextricably integrated with religious and social ceremonies, rituals and traditional knowledge. In addition, these aromatic genotypes are vital genetic resources for agronomic and quality traits. This study analyses the diversity among 26 indigenous non-basmati aromatic rice genotypes, six basmati and 9 HYV; both morphologically using 12 grain and kernel traits and genetically using 23 previously mapped SSR markers. High genetic diversity was observed for the grain and kernel dimension and quality traits, in the indigenous non-basmati aromatic rice genotypes through D2 analysis. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) profile obtained from 23 SSR markers generated 172 alleles including 28 rare alleles and 9 null alleles. The ensuing dendrogram obtained from the SSR profiles clustered the basmati rice and the indigenous non-basmati aromatic rice genotypes separately.   Key words: Aromatic rice, genetic diversity, SSR polymorphism.