Genetic Variability Study of Yield and Yield Related Traits in Rice ( Oryza sativa L.) Genotypes

Rice is one of the most important food crop which is a stable food for more than half of the world population providing one fifth of calorie consumption. In Ethiopia, it is considered as one of the target commodity that can promote agricultural production of the country. Ethiopia has a wide range of ecology that is suitable for rice production which is not suitable for other crops. Although the country has high potential, the lack well adaptable varieties is one of the major problem especially for irrigated areas. The present study was conducted with the objective of assessing the presence of genetic variability in 64 genotypes. The genotypes were evaluated from June to November 2016 at WARC experimental site using 8 × 8 simple lattice designs. The ANOVA revealed that there is highly significant difference between the genotypes in all studied traits. Also, GCV and PCV indicate the presence of variability in all studied traits. But PCV is a bit higher than GCV which indicated the influence of the environment in each trait although the effect was not much except in PL. The presence of high heritability and genetic advance in most of the traits indicates the presence of additive gene action. So, these traits can be improved through direct selection. The phenotypic correlation and principal component analysis showed that most of the traits evaluated are important for selection of high yielding genotypes and contributing their share for wider genetic variability of the genotypes. Therefore, the overall result indicates the presence of enough variability for development of improved rice varieties and the studied traits can be used for selection. But the experiment should be repeated by integrating more number of important traits in representative irrigated areas of the country.