GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION IN SOME CHINESE HYBRID RICE UNDER DRY CONDITIONS.

Water shortage, being a serious threat to agriculture in Pakistan can be possibly overcome through development of high yielding drought tolerant varieties. A field study was therefore, conducted to evaluate the performance of 10 hybrid rice along with two high yielding varieties under drought conditions at Arid Zone Research Institute (AZRI), Bahawalpur. The experiment was designed in RCBD with three replications. The crop was maintained under moisture stress conditions. The data on various plant traits including, days to panicle initiation, panicle length, spikelet fertility, days to maturity, plant height, number of grains per panicle, number of productive tillers, 1000 grain weight and paddy yield were recorded. The results of analysis indicated a high range of genetic variation among various hybrids for plant height, number of grains per panicle, number of productive tillers per plant, 1000 grain weight and paddy yield. The variation for days to 50% panicle initiation, panicle length, spikelet fertility and days to maturity were however non- significant. Plant height ranged from 77 to 116 cm, number of grains per panicle from 152 to 449, number of productive tillers per plant from 15 to 29, 1000-grain weight from 23 to 40 (g) and paddy yield from 2.38 to 10 t ha-1 in different hybrids. The highest yield ( 10 t ha-1 was produced by hybrid GSR-H-0140. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]