RESPONSE OF RICE GENOTYPES IN ROOT RELATED TRAITS UNDER WATER DEFICIT CONDITIONS

Abstract

The experiment was conducted for varietals screening of root related traits in ten rice genotypes collected from ERR! (BR21. BR24, BRRI dhan42. BRRI dhan43. BRR! dhiUl48. BRR! dhan55. BR6976-! I-I. OM I49(), BR6976-2B-15) with two water stress-tolerant genotypes Hashikalmi and Dharial used as check. The experiment was carried out at the field of Agricultural Botany in the rain protected polyethene shed house to avoid rain under natural conditions in root elongation perforated polyethene lubes which was 70 em in length. At the beginning, the rice seedlings were normally irrigated up to fourteen days for ensuring normal growth. From fifteen days onwards water stress was imposed till thirty days and data were recorded using .H)-days old seedlings. The maximum length of the root was found in BRR! dhan55 (22 em). Haxhikalmi C~2 em). Genotypes BR1I. BR24. BRR! dhan43. BR 6976-11-1 produced shortest roots than the water stress-tolerant genotypes. BRRI dhan55. Hashikalrni and Dharial. Under water stress conditions. the root shoot ratio was higher in tolerant genotypes and was lower in genotypes BR21. BR24. BRRI dhun-l J, BR 6976-11-1. The decreased root shoot ratio indicated that root dry matter rather than shoot dry matter was more affected due to water deficit conditions. Our findings suggest that deep root, small shoot and higher root-shoot ratio are the characteristics, of water stress-tolerant genotypes.