Yield Stability of Very Early Rice Genotypes Under Rainfed Upland Ecosystem

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out at All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Phulbani to evaluate the newly developed early maturing rice genotypes and estimate their yield stability. The trial was laid out in randomized block design with three replications for 5 years from 2012 to 2016 involving 26 rice genotypes including-(a) 22 improved lines from AICRP for Dryland Agriculture, OUAT, Phulbani (ODR lines; ODR denotes ‘Odisha dryland rice’), (b) one line from NRRI sub-centre, Hazaribag, DDR-121, (c) one exotic variety, ZHU 11-26 and (iv) two varieties from NRRI, Cuttack, Vandana and N-22. Another set of experiment was carried out at ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack to evaluate the response of the genotypes towards drought stress. Highest mean grain yield was recorded in ODR 12-3 (30.43 q/ha) followed by ODR 12C (27.42 q/ha) and ODR 41 (27.22 q/ha). ODR 12C exhibiting high mean yield along with highest slope can be considered most adaptable. Long slender aromatic genotypes such as ODR 1, ODR 1-1, ODR 1-2 and ODR 1-3 had also high yield coupled with slope >1.0, thus exhibited high stability. Drought score (DS), performed on the basis of Standard Evaluation System (SES) scale, showed that ODR-55(1) is highly drought tolerant on the basis of leaf rolling and drying character (SES=0).