Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

DEVELOPMENT OF A MINI-CORE OF RICE GERMPLASM

B.C. Patra, N. N. Jambhulkar and T. Mohapatra

Abstract

A set of 2027 primitive/native germplasm collections made 50 years back and conserved in gene bank was characterized to develop minicore subset in order to better utilize the gene pool. As many as 23 phenotypic traits including 10 quantitative and 13 qualitative traits were analyzed and a minicore subset of 49 genotypes was developed by the PowerCore search. The mini-core was developed with PowerCore software on the basis of 23 phenotypic traits with 2027 entries in the original collection. The resultant mini-core had 4.84% of mean difference (MD%), 53.59% of variance difference (VD%), 149.35% of variable rate (VR%), and 94.37% of coincidence rate (CR%) with the core collection, which brought about full coverage of 23 traits. The present mini-core displayed 100% coverage for 23 phenotypic traits suggesting there is full coverage of all the diversity present in each class of phenotypic traits in the entire set of collection. The mini core set presently identified can immediately be rigorously evaluated for a variety of agronomically important traits including biotic and a biotic stress tolerance.