Heritability and Predicted Gain of Twelve Traits in Fifty-five Upland Rice Varieties

The genetic information about upland rice traits in terms of heritability (H2b) and predicted gain expressed to the mean (RAM) could lead to an effective selection process in the upland varietal development. Fifty-five upland rice varieties (URVs) were evaluated using 12 traits in three seasons. Traits culm length (CL), days to 50% flowering (DF), days to maturity (DM), flag leaf length (FLL), flag leaf width (FLW), grain length (GL), grain width (GW), one thousand grain weight (OTGW), plant height (PH), panicle length (PL), productive tillers (PT) and yield (YCC) had an overall mean of 102.7 cm, 55.3 days, 91.2 days, 37.9 cm, 1.6 cm, 8.69 mm, 2.92 mm, 21.2 g, 120.6 cm, 26.5 cm, 6.7 tillers and 2.25 t/ha, respectively. STAR V2.01 provided a combined analysis of variance (ANOVA) and found a high significance among URVs in all traits with corresponding coefficient of variation range of 3.3% (DM) to 24.16% (YCC). H2b on the other hand had a range of 89.3% (PH) to 99.2% (OTGW) while RAM had a range of 14.5% (GL) to 91.7% (YCC). It was CL, DF, DM, FLL, GL, OTGW, PH, PL and YCC with H2b >95% were highly heritable and FLL, FLW, PL and YCC with RAM >30% were high in genetic gain. Therefore, bigger flag leaves (FLL and FLW) as first indicator and yield as last indicator could be recommended in deciding what genotypes to keep and develop in the upland breeding process