Genetic variability of two rice populations allows the selection of promising plants for mechanized harvesting

Abstract

At the Sur del Jíbaro grain research station, in Sancti Spíritus province, during the 2016-2017 wet season, two rice populations were evaluated to determine genetic variability based on their morphoagronomic characters. PIACuba-4 and PIACuba-5 are populations carrying the androsterility gene, obtained by population improvement through recurrent selection. These, were planted in plots through transplant technology, in an area that included 700 m2. To evaluate the plants individually a seeding frame of 0.30 x 0.25 m was adopted, the evaluated characters were: stem length, yield per plant, number of grains per panicle, length of the panicles, number of stems per plant, length of the grains and weight of 1000 grains. The data was processed by descriptive statistics for data grouped by distribution of frequency; in both populations, genetic variability was observed and this varied depending on the population and the evaluated character. The genetic variability of PIACuba-4 and PIACuba-5 populations was determined, the characters that showed the highest coeffi cient of variation were stem length, yield per plant, number of grains per panicle and number of stem per plant. Other characters such as panicle length, grain length and weight of 1000 grains showed moderate coeffi cients of variation. From the morphoagronomic evaluation of the populations, promising plants with appropriate characteristics for the mechanized harvest were selected and seeds of 120 selected lines were collected, 66 originated from the PIACuba-4 population and 54 derived from PIACuba-5