Correlation and Path Analysis of Yield Components in Rice (Oryza sativa L.) under Irrigated and Reproductive Stage Drought Stress Condition

Aim: The current experiment was conducted to study correlation and path analysis among morphological traits and their contribution towards yield under irrigated and drought stress condition using forty eight diverse rice genotypes. Study Design: The experiment was studied in three replications using Randomized Block Design. Place and Duration of Study: The research was carried out during Kharif 2018 at Rice Research Farm, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour (Bhagalpur), India. Methodology: The experiment was conducted in two different sets; irrigated and drought stress condition. The yield and yield attributes were recorded under both the conditions to conduct the correlation and path analysis. Results: The analysis of variance revealed that genotypes significantly varied in yield and yield related traits. In addition, growth and yield attributes such as effective tillers per hill, biological yield, harvest index (%) and number of fertile grains per panicle were significantly and positively correlated with grain yield per plant under irrigated as well as reproductive stage drought stress condition. It was observed that total number of grains per panicle, number of fertile grains per panicle and biological yield had high positive direct effect on grain yield per plant in both irrigated (control) as well stress condition, indicating true relationship of these characters with grain yield and direct selection for these characters will be rewarding. In rest of the characters studied, correlation was mainly due to indirect effects through component characters and hence indirect selection will lead to yield improvement in rice. Conclusion: The potential for direct and indirect selection for reproductive stage drought stress tolerance using the associated characters may be useful to the breeder to formulate appropriate breeding plans for the selection of the genotype which tolerate high temperature condition.