Abstract
As rice is the staple food for more than half of the world's population, enhancing grain yield irrespective of the variable climatic conditions is indispensable. Many traditionally cultivated rice landraces are well adapted to severe environmental conditions and have high genetic diversity that could play an important role in crop improvement. The present study revealed a high level of genetic diversity among the unexploited rice landraces cultivated by the farmers of Kerala. Twelve polymorphic markers detected a total of seventy- seven alleles with an average of 6.416 alleles per locus. Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) value ranged from 0.459 to 0.809, and to differentiate the rice genotypes, RM 242 was found to be the most appropriate marker with a high value of 0.809. The current study indicated that the rice landraces are highly diverse with higher values of the adequate number of alleles, PIC, and Shannon information index. Utilizing these informative SSR markers for future molecular characterization and population genetic studies in rice landraces are advisable. Haplotypes are sets of genomic regions within a chromosome inherited together, and haplotype-based breeding is a promising strategy for designing next-generation rice varieties. Here, haplotype analysis explored 270 haplotype blocks and 775 haplotypes from all the chromosomes of landraces under study. The number of SNPs in each haplotype block ranged from two to 28. Haplotypes of genes related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, yield-enhancing, and growth and development in rice landraces were also elucidated in the current study. The present investigation revealed the genetic diversity of rice landraces and the haplotype analysis will open the way for genome-wide association studies, QTL identification, and marker-assisted selection in the unexplored rice landraces collected from Kerala.
Highlights
Growing human population, unhinged environmental conditions and decreasing agricultural resources have severe impact on global crop production
The present study disclosed high level of genetic diversity among the unexploited rice landraces cultivated by farmers of Kerala
The current study indicated that the rice landraces were highly diverse with higher values of the effective number of alleles, Polymorphic information content (PIC), and Shannon information index and utilizing these informative simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers for future molecular characterization and population genetic studies in rice landraces are advisable
Summary
Growing human population, unhinged environmental conditions and decreasing agricultural resources have severe impact on global crop production. Rice yield need to be increased by almost 40% by 2030 to satisfy the growing demand without affecting the resource adversely [2]. As rice is one of the staple food crops, the ultimate way to increase yield within the obtainable agricultural lands is genetic improvement in rice. Genetic information of rice landraces is essential for improving the existing crop varieties with recent molecular techniques to defend ourselves from food scarcity through the concept of sustainable agricultural development. Many of the traditionally cultivated rice landraces are well adapted to severe environmental conditions and have high genetic diversity that could play an important role in crop improvement
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