Screening for BLB
The morphological screening of thirty five rice genotypes against the bacterial leaf blight (BLB) pathogen under field condition was carried out using PDI (Percentage disease index). Among the genotypes CR 1009 found to be resistant with the lowest PDI value of 9.67 per cent. The genotypes Karsamba, TPS 4 and Kaivara samba registered highest PDI value of 70.67, 67.22 and 66.67 respectively. The result of this screening of rice genotypes based on field screening was presented in the Table 1. Of the genotypes three per cent were resistant, forty-six per cent were found to be moderately resistant, thirty seven percent were moderately susceptible and fourteen per cent were susceptible to rice bacterial leaf blight (BLB) which was presented in the Fig 1.
Tamilarasan et al., (2018) morphologically screened one hundred and fourteen rice varieties against bacterial leaf blight (BLB) using PDI and concluded that genotypes CR 1009, PY 5, Kadaikannam, ADT 41, ACK 13005, ACK 12001, Mulampunchan and Veethiruppu were resistant against rice bacterial leaf blight (BLB). Further grouped the genotypes using D
2 statistics and mentioned the position of the resistant genotypes in the respective clusters also pointed out that the BLB resistance is genotype dependent and not cluster based.
D2 analysis
An effort was made by using D
2 statistic proposed by
Mahalanobis (1949), to assess the nature and magnitude of thirty five rice genotypes and to select the suitable genotypes for further utilization in breeding programme. In the cluster diagram formed by the Tocher’s method, eight major clusters were formed. The maximum number of genotypes was depicted in cluster I which comprised of ten genotypes followed by cluster VI and II with nine and six genotypes respectively, whereas cluster III, IV, V, VII and VIII comprised two genotypes each. It is presented in the Table 2. The pattern of group constellation proved the existence of significant amount of variability. Similar findings were also reported by
Dey et al., 2020.
The highest intra cluster distance was recorded for cluster II (41.16) followed by cluster VI (37.73) and lowest intra cluster average distance was recorded by cluster III (16.76) and IV (18.65) which is furnished in Table 3 and Fig 2. The genotypes belonging to the clusters separated by high genetic distance could be used in hybridization programme for obtaining a wide spectrum of variation among the segregants
(Solanki et al., 2019). Maximum inter cluster distance was observed between VII and VIII (60.80), followed by cluster VI and VII (57.06). The minimum inter cluster distance was observed between clusters III and IV (22.03) and this was followed by the clusters V and III (27.14). Among the nine traits studied, maximum contribution was made by single plant yield (66.72%) which is in agreement with
Banumathy et al., 2010. The cluster mean for all the nine biometric traits were studied character wise and furnished below in Table 4. Hybridization among the genotypes which had the maximum inter-cluster distances could produce heterotic combinations and wide variability in segregating generations for many beneficial traits
(Anandan et al., 2011). Thus, the divergence of the thirty five rice genotypes used in the study may be due to involvement of different ancestral pedigree or uncommon parentage.
On the basis of Mahalanobis D
2 statistics, the thirty five genotypes were grouped into eight clusters. The BLB resistance in genotype dependent and not cluster based. The resistant genotype CR 1009 under field screening was positioned in VI cluster. The cluster II had susceptible genotypes karsamba and kaivarasamba.