Abstract

A collection of 200 salt tolerance rice landraces was assed for genetic diversity using quantitative agro-morphological characters. ANOVA showed highly significant differences (LSD 0.01) among the traits assessed such as grain length, grain width, number of unfilled grains, 1000-grain weight, leaf length and leaf width except panicles per plant and yield. Correlation coefficients showed that all the traits were highly correlated with each other except yield.. The diversity indices (H’) for quantitative descriptors were high ranging from 0.68 to 0.95. Overall the mean diversity index for all traits was 0.88). Cluster analysis generated by UPGMA grouped the 200 rice landraces into six clusters with similarity coefficient of 20.61. The six clusters were distinct in terms of culms length, number of filled grains, panicle length, panicles per plant, grain length, grain width, yield and biomass.

Key words: Rice, genetic, landraces, diversities.