Publication

Abstract : Drought tolerant lines of Improved White Ponni (IWP) were developed by marker assisted back crossing of IWP with Apo. Three drought tolerant backcross inbred lines (BILs), developed by introgressing the drought tolerance QTLs from Apo were evaluated for drought tolerance along with their parents based on drought indices. Twenty drought indices were calculated based on grain yield under drought and irrigated conditions. Yield in drought and irrigated conditions were significantly and positively correlated with mean productivity index, harmonic mean, geometric mean of productivity and stress tolerance index. Ranking method and three dimensional plot discriminated IWP-4-2 as the most drought tolerant genotype, which was placed in group A (Genotypes, which performed good under drought and irrigated conditions), and outperformed the drought tolerant parent, Apo. IWP-4-2 possessed medium slender grains similar to the recurrent parent, IWP. Based on its drought tolerance and grain type IWP-4-2 can also be used as donor parent for developing climate resilient rice variety suitable to conditions obtaining in Tamil Nadu.