Rice landraces from haor areas of Bangladesh possess greater genetic diversity as revealed by morpho-molecular approaches along with grain quality traits

Abstract

Haors are slightly depressed bowl or saucer-shaped wetland ecosystems, between the natural levees of rivers flowing into sea. Landraces are locally adapted germplasms, often with and have valuable traits. Genetically diverse germplasm is a valuable resource for the crop improvement programme. Therefore, the genetic diversity of 40 rice landraces from haor areas in Bangladesh was assessed through phenotyping and genotyping. Significant variability was found for several agronomic traits at p ≤ 0.01. Lal paijam was the earliest maturing genotype (130 days) with the lowest yield (8 g/plant). Lal kumri was the best genotype suited to haor lands due to its medium earliness (144 days) and the highest yield (30 g/plant). The genotypes were grouped using phenotypic or genotypic traits into five clusters. The first five principal components with eigenvalue of >1.0 were responsible for a cumulative variance of 72.9% in which principal components (PC); PC1, PC2, PC3, PC4, and PC5 contributed 25.7%, 19.2%, 10.9%, 8.8%, and 8.3%, respectively. A sum of 80 alleles was observed at 6 Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) loci specifying the range of allele number from 11 (RM 169) to 16 (RM 25) with an average of 14.17. The mean values of polymorphism information content and gene diversity were 0.859 and 0.871, respectively. Most of the genotypes exhibited medium grain size and shape, intermediate gelatinization temperature, and intermediate amylose content. The findings of this study can be exploited to develop early, high-yielding rice varieties with premium grain quality.

Keywords:

• genetic diversity
• rice landraces
• haor areas
• SSR marker
• clusters
• grain quality

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Haors are slightly depressed bowl or saucer-shaped wetland ecosystem where cultivation practices and livelihoods of the people are unique. Landraces are locally adapted germplasms that have certain valuable traits which can be used to meet present and future challenges in plant breeding. Study of their genetic variability can help us to extract their valuable traits, protect them from being lost and maintain biodiversity. The results from the present study revealed that the genotypes from the haor areas have ample divergence at both phenotypic and genotypic levels. This basic study would help make precise breeding strategies and improve different agronomical traits in hybridization programme to develop early maturing yet high yielding varieties which can be competent for the haor areas to complement the existing ones.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully appreciate the Plant Breeding Division, Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), Mymensingh-2202 for providing research facilities and making this research feasible. The authors also acknowledge their heartiest thanks to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh for providing technical support during biochemical analysis. The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Dr Md. Monirul Islam, Senior Scientific Officer, Biotechnology Division, Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture, Mymensingh-2202 as well as Nihar Ranjan Saha, for providing laboratory facilities during genotyping and assistance in analysis of molecular data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

LH and AH supervised the experiment. SRS carried out the experiment, analyzed the data, and prepared the draft manuscript. AF reviewed and edited the final manuscript. SNB conceptualized the molecular and biochemical works. FY planned and designed the field experiment. WA assisted in phenotyping and biochemical analyses.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23311932.2022.2075130

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Setu Rani Saha

Setu Rani Saha is involved in collection and characterization of germplasms, functional analysis of rice genes involved in tolerance to abiotic stress, and grain quality improvement in rice. The research area and interests of Aleya Ferdausi are focused on stress physiology specially on transcriptomics and metabolomics related to plant biotic and abiotic stress tolerance as well as isolation of bioactive compounds. Lutful Hassan is a reputed researcher in the field of plant breeding and biotechnology of field crops. Md. Ashraful Haque’s research expertise includes biology of higher plants along with plant-microbes interaction. The research specialization of Shamsun Nahar Begum is varietal improvement of rice and pulse crops through Mutation Breeding and Biotechnology. Fahmina Yasmin focuses on abiotic stress breeding and Plant genetic resources (PGR) of different crops. Wasim Akram is involved in some projects on the development of salinity and submergence tolerant rice varieties.