Correlation Studies in Hybrid Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is staple food of more than 60% of Indian population. It accounts for about 43% of total food grain production and 46% of total cereal production in the country. Rice occupies pivotal place in Indian Agriculture. In order to meet the domestic demand of the increasing population the present day production of 107.40 million tons (Annonymous, 2015-16) of milled rice has to be increased to 125 million tons by the year 2030. Since the yield of high yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice is plateauing, it is rather difficult to achieve this target with the present day inbred varieties. Therefore, to sustain the self sufficiency in rice, additional production of 1.17 million tons is needed every year. At present, India has about 2.5 million hectares under hybrid rice cultivation of the total of 44 million hectares under rice cultivation (Ayyappan et al., 2012). The need for hybrid rice rapidly increasing population, plateauing yield trend of HYV’s, declining resources (Viraktamath, 1997). To break the yield barriers in rice breeding strategies, attempts are being made. The grain yield is a complex character dependent on many International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 8 Number 04 (2019) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com