RICE PHENOTYPING THROUGH GRAIN QUALITY TRAITS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW GENERATION CULTIVARS

Abstract

The present rice market requires a range of rice products with increased eating and nutritional values. The presented work was carried out within the framework of the breeding program for developing new rice cultivars with desirable grain quality traits based on an integrated approach, using modern methods of trait phenotyping and the genomic approach, post genomic, and cellular technologies. The latest study aimed to phenotype rice cultivars from the Unique Scientific Installation (USI) - Collection of Federal Scientific Rice Centre, Krasnodar, Russia, as sources of valuable grain quality traits. Studied traits included vitreosity, fracturing, and protein and grain amylose content. The coefficient of variation determined the variability of traits and helped identify the best cultivars as sources of valuable traits. The grain quality of harvested sample cultivars showed significant differences. The rice cultivar Thaibonnet gave the best results in terms of grain quality traits and variability. By combining low variability of technologically-tested quality traits and protein content, the rice cultivars Elbrus and Thaibonnet led all the samples. Cultivar Svetlana was characterized by high traits of vitreosity and fracturing and having less variability. The cultivars Leader and Patriot both had high protein content and low trait variability. These cultivars are recommended for use in parental crosses in breeding programs to develop rice genotypes with desirable grain quality traits and nutritional values.