Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Basmati Indica Rice (Oryza Sativa L.)

Abstract

Basmati rice is a variety of long grain rice grown in India, notable for its fragrance and delicate, nuanced flavour. The grains of basmati rice are longer than most other types of rice. The rice crop grows in diverse environments. Even though there are numerous claims on varieties of Basmati rice cultivars in India, many of them might be diverse features. Hence the need to develop the DNA fingerprinting profile and polymorphisms studies of genotype of basmati rice cultivars by using molecular markers such as microsatellite markers. For this purpose, experiments were conducted to characterize basmati rice at morphological and molecular level using SSR markers. The thirty Basmati rice cultivars originated from different agro-climatic zones of India were evaluated for number of tillers per plant, plant height (em), panicle per plant and panicle length (em) and Yield (kg!m2) in field during 2009, Kharif season. Pusa Sugandha 4 (33 tiller/plant) showed maximum number of productive tillers/plant as well as panicle/plant (21) while, Nagina 22 (N-22) and Super Basmati were found tallest and most dwarf cultivars. Pusa Sungandha 3 showed longest panicle (40.07cm), while highest yield was recorded incase Vallabh 21 (4.86 kg/m2 ) followed by 4.84 (kg/m2 ) in Pusa Sungandha 5. Twenty microsatellite markers were used to characterize basmati rice cultivars at molecular level. The maximum polymorphism was observed in case of RM I 07 (five polymorphic bands) followed by RM 554 (four polymorphic bands) and RM 85 (three polymorphic band), while single band was obtained in case ofRM05, RM 18, RMI28, RM 273 and RM338 ranging between 260 to 60 bp. Maximum PIC (Polymorphism Lnformation Content) value was obtained by RM273 (0.995), while minimum PIC value was obtained by RM 18 (0.556). Jaccard's similarity coefficients were estimated to study genetic diversity at molecular level. All Thirty Basmati Rice genotypes were assigned into three clusters comprised of 9,7, 14 genotypes. Pusa Sungandha 2 and Pusa Sungandha 3 of cluster II and Pusa Sungandha 4 and N-22 of cluster Ill showed identical banding pattern indicates that possibly these were descendants of a single land race. Since, Basmati rice germplasm lines showed substantial variability for the yield and yield contributing traits viz., number of tiller per plant, plant height, panicle per plant and panicle length, enhancement of productivity is being sought by crossing distantly located members following markers assisted breeding programme.