Selecting Traits for Drought Tolerance Screening in Rice

Abstract

Drought is one of major constrains for rice production in Indonesia. Development of drought tolerant rice variety is believed as an efficien and effective strategy to face the challange. Nevertheless, drought is a complex trait thus many approach had been implemented in the selection of drought tolerant rice genotypes. This study aimed to search traits correlated with drought tolerance in rice plant. Two screening methods, i.e. seedling box and mini pot methods was conducted into 60 rice genotypes. The experiments were conducted during dry season 2016. The results showed that based on % recovery, TIL24 had the highest (82.5 %) while number of green leaves had strong positive correlation with root length, root number in zone 1 (horizontal), 2 (medium), and 3 (vertical), total root number, leaf rolling, and plant recovery. Nevertheless, proportion of root in zone 3 negatively correlated with shoot length, green leaf number, root number in zone 1 and 2, total root number, and plant recovery. It seem that proportion of vertical root compensate with other traits in developing drought tolerance, while number of green leaf under stress and root number in zone 2 correlated more with traits supporting drought tolerant in rice.