Developing Mini Core of Rice Germplasm for Submergence Tolerance

Abstract

We report here development of a mini-core subset of submergence tolerant rice genotypes containing 21 accessions representing the genetic diversity derived from 5716 accessions collected from fl ood-prone rice growing areas. The mini-core was developed using PowerCore software on the basis of fi ve quantitative and one qualitative trait. The resultant mini-core had 12.52% of mean difference (MD%), 68.13% of variance difference (VD%), 168.38% of variable rate (VR%), and 98.21% of coincidence rate (CR%) with the core collection, which brought about full coverage of 6 traits. The diversity of mini-core and entire set estimated by Nei index was 0.676 and 0.536 respectively. Cluster analysis was done using UPGMA method. These 21 accessions were classifi ed into four clusters containing 12, 5, 3 and 1 accession in clusters 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. In nutshell, the minicore developed in this study is a representative subset of the rice germplasm collected from different parts of rainfed lowlands of India.