Effect of Simulated Drought Stress on some Grain Shape and Quality Traits of Rice ( Oryza sativa L . )

Grain shape quality traits of twenty (20) rice genotypes were studied in order to understand the effects of drought stress on quality traits of rice. The result of Analysis of Variance clearly indicates that genotypes significantly differ for studied grain quality traits under both for normal as well as drought prone environments, except grain breadth /thickness without bran under stress condition. Higher heritability estimates for all quality traits under both environments indicate that these characters are controlled by multiple genes. Results showed that grain length was positively correlated with length to width ratio (0.863* and 0.668*) and negatively correlated with grain width (-0.614** and 0.313**) and grain breadth (-0.321**and -0.030 ns ) under both normal and stress conditions respectively. Grain width was positively correlated with grain breadth (0.711** and 0.486**) and negatively correlated with length to width ratio (-0.926* and -0.910*) under both conditions respectively. Grain width was highly correlated with yield per plant (0.386** and 0.315**) under both, normal and drought stress respectively. It shows that reduction in grain width has direct effect on grain yield. Under normal condition, yield was positively correlated with grain width (0.386**) and grain breadth (0.552*) indicating that grain width and grain breadth should be considered while screening high yielding genotypes under normal condition and grain width should be considered for drought stres © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved. ARTIC LE INFO Article h istory: Received: 31 March 2014; Received in revised form: 20 July 2014; Accepted: 29 July 2014;