Genetic and heritability estimates of landrace upland rice accessions grown in rainforest agro-ecological zone of Nigeria

Abstract

The basic understanding and knowledge of
genetic variability within a plant population are highly
fundamental for its improvement by the plant breeders.
Research work was conducted to estimate the extent of
genetic variability, heritability, and genetic advance as
percent of mean of landrace upland rice accessions that are
predominantly grown in the rainforest agro-ecological zone
of Nigeria. Ten landrace upland rice accessions constituted
the treatment and were laid in randomized complete block
design with three replications in three locations between
March to November 2019. Analysis of variance revealed
significant differences (P<0.01) among the accessions and
the environments except for the number of tillers per plant
while accession by environment interaction differs significantly for all the traits though at different levels except
the numbers of tillers per plant. Accession 1 recorded the
highest grain yield (1.72) followed by accession 2 (1.38),
accession 8 (1.36), accession 3 (1.29), and accession 4 (1.04)
accordingly while accession 7 (0.75) had the least grain yield
across the locations. Heritability (broad-sense) estimates
ranged from (61.4393%) grain yield to (99.6028%) plant
height. Moderate to high phenotypic and genotypic coefficients
of variation and genetic advances as a percent of mean were
recorded for all the traits. Moderate to high estimates of
genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation, and genetic
advances as a percent of mean coupled with high heritability
(broad-sense) for these traits is an indication that the traits are
governed by additive genetic action. Hence, improvement of
these traits can be made through selection. © 2021 Department
of Agricultural Sciences, AIOU