Sani Sadiya*
Department of Biological Science, Kaduna State University, Nigeria
*Corresponding Author: Sani Sadiya, Department of Biological Science, Kaduna State University, Nigeria.
Received: January 24, 2020; Published: February 13, 2020
Drought stress is the most important constraint to rice production in rainfed systems, affecting 10 million hectares of upland rice and over 13 million ha of rainfed lowland rice in Asia alone. Drought occurs throughout the length and breadth of Nigeria mostly severe in the Sudano-Sahalian states of Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe, Gombe and Borno. Chronic dry spells of relatively short duration can often result in substantial yield loss, especially if they occur around the flowering stage. In addition, drought risk reduces productivity even during favorable years in drought prone areas because farmers avoid investing in inputs when they fear crop loss. Identifying rice varieties and breeding lines with high levels of drought tolerance for use as donors in breeding and gene discovery is one of the main challenges for rice research. Water stress may occur at different growth stages and be of varying duration and intensities, thereby affecting growth and yield. Information on genetic variation, heritability and correlation among various characters will help breeders in deciding the most appropriate procedure for development of drought-tolerant cultivars. The objectives of these studies were to determine the effect of drought on growth and reproductive traits of rice under drought conditions. Rice (Oryza Sativa L.) germplasms were evaluated to study the effect of drought on growth and reproductive plant function using a split plot design during 2015/16. Rice germplasms showed appreciable variations in morphological traits (leaf rolling and leaf drying) under different water regimes. The cumulative effect of water stress on growth and reproductive traits resulted in yield reduction. Thus, selection may be possible for these characters for improving yield.
Keywords: Rice Genotypes; Full Irrigation; Vegetative Stage Drought; Reproductive Stage Drought; Drought Stress; Morphological Traits; Breeding Lines.
Citation: Sani Sadiya. “Morphological Analysis of Drought Tolerance Traits in Rice (Oryza Sativa L.)". Acta Scientific Agriculture 4.3 (2020): 01-09.
Copyright: © 2020 Sani Sadiya. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.