ASSESSMENTS OF GENETIC VARIABILITY, CORRELATION AND PATH ANALYSIS FOR YIELD AND YIELD ATTRIBUTING TRAITS IN RICE (ORYZA SATIVA L.) GENOTYPES FOR GRAIN YIELD UNDER IRRIGATED CONDITION

An experiment was carried out, 100 genotypes of rice (Oryza sativa L.) during kharif, season at Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh in Randomized Block Design with two replications under irrigated condition to analyse genetic parameter, correlation and path analysis.Biometrical observations were taken by thirteen characters viz., days to flowering, plant height, flag leaf length, flag leaf width, number of tillers, panicle length, biological yield per plant, grain yield per plant, harvest index, total grain weight, number of filled grain, number of unfilled grain and total number of grains.Analysis of variance revealed presence of high significant variability for all the traits.Harvest index, number of filled grain per plant, number of unfilled grains per plant, total number of grain and thousand grain weight exhibited higher variation (i.e., high value of GCV, PCV and high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean).Character association of the yield and yield attributing traits revealed significant positive association of grain yield with days to flowering, flag leaf length, panicle length, biological yield, harvest index, number of filled grains and total number of grains both at phenotypic and genotypic level.Hence, selection for these traits can improve yield.Path coefficient analysis revealed that a very high positive direct effect on grain yield was exhibited by number of filled grains and number of unfilled grains at phenotypic level along with biological yield and harvest index.Hence selection for these traits could bring improvement in yield and yield component in rice.