International Journal of Plant & Soil Science

Longer grain length with smaller grain breadth, length-breadth ratio and 1000-grain weight is considered desirable character for the development of fine grain premium quality rice. In the present experiment, grain appearance quality of 15 F₂ families and 10 parental genotypes were determined to select fine grain rice. The maximum mean value for thousand seed weight was found from the genotypes P2 (29.32g), P1 (28.89g), and F₂ generations of P2 x P5 (32.77g), P2 x P1 (27.30g), P1 x P4 (26.04g) and were considered as high yielders in terms of grain weight. The highest mean values for grain length were found from the genotypes P6 (9.95 mm; grain breadth 2.23 mm), P7 (9.36 mm; grain breadth 2.62 mm), and F₂ generations of P6 x P7 (9.46 mm; grain breadth 2.44 mm), P3 x P6 (9.40 mm; grain breadth 2.18 mm), P7 x P6 (9.37 mm; grain breadth 2.29 mm), P7 x P3 (9.36 mm; grain breadth 2.33 mm). The F₂ progenies of the cross P1 x P4 (7.79 to 11.61 mm) and P6 x P3 (7.69 to 11.11 mm) showed extremes performance for grain length indicating transgressive segregation for this trait. The superior genotypes with desirable grain characters could be selected from transgressive segregation of F₂ families for the development of new varieties of fine grain rice.