Morphological characterization of rice cultivars their root colonization with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and screening for field resistance caused by brown spot disease

Abstract

Variability in seed morphology was studied in 15 rice cultivars using qualitative and quantitative characters. Germplasm of these indigenous rice landraces were collected from Bijanbari, Kalimpong, Sikkim, Malda, Siliguri and UBKV (Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya). Data were recorded for traits such as Kernel colour, Seed cóat colour, Aroma, Presence of Awn and Length of the seed. A total of 9 landraces had white kernel colour while 4 had brown and 2 had greyed-orange. The seed coat colour variation in different landraces ranged from Golden yellow, Yellow, Red and Black. 6 landraces were having aroma whereas 9 had no aroma and lastly 11 landraces were found to have awn and 4 were awnless. UBKV-4 was longest in length with 1.1 cm and Sano masuri being the smallest of 0.4 cm. Establishment of disease in naturally infected rice cultivars were observed and disease index was calculated. Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) were screened from rhizosphere of fifteen rice cultivars grown on experimental field using wet sieving and decanting method. Microscopical observation revealed the presence of different genus of sp. Were found to high in all the fifteen cultivars of rice plants followed by Gigaspora, Scutellospora and Acaulospora. Histopathological study of roots showed the presence of vesicles and arbuscules. AMF infection and total number of spores per 100 grams of soil were recorded. Present study evaluates the study of different AMF population and their histopathology harbouring in the rhizosphere of rice.