Rice being an important food crop for nearly half the world's population. Kinoshita and Takahashi (1968), reported leaf pubescence in rice to be controlled by two complementary genes. Another mutant gene responsible for hairiness of glume was reported to cause hairyness on leaf margins (Librojo and Khus 1986). Takamure and Kinoshita (2001) reported complementary genes governing hairiness while Yamamoto et al. (1997) reported glabrousness to be controlled by one recessive gene.

We report on the hairiness of leaf to be governed by a dominant gene and propose it as Hl3(t).

Crosses were made involving JNPT 89 x IR 36; JNPT 89 x Pusa Basmati 1 and JNPT 89 x Pusa Basmati 1. The new plant type (NPT) parents were derived from japonica (group 6) land races from the Philippines, Costa Rica, and China. Data on the presence or absence of hairs on leaf were recorded on about 1000 F2 plants in each of the three crosses at the late vegetative stage and on 916 F3 progenies (Table 1). The F1 was hairy indicating the trait is dominant over non-hairy.

In the cross JNPT 89 x IR36 a ratio of 755:245 hairy leaved; non-hairy leaved plants were obtained in F2 with a χ² value of 0.133. The F2 segregation for two other crosses also showed a good fit to 3:1 (Table 1). Furthermore, F3 segregation also confirmed monogenic segregation in each of the three crosses (1:2:1). The results support the previous observation where Mishra et al. (2006) reported leaf hairiness to be controlled by a single dominant gene in rice.

References

Librojo A. L. and G. S. Khush, 1986. Chromosomal location of some mutant genes through the use of primary trisomics in rice. Rice Genet. Newsl., International Rice Research Institute, Manila, Philippines: 249-255.

Mishra R., C. Bharadwaj, S. K. Rao, , D. K. Mishra, T. C. Satyavathi, and M. P. Janoria, , 2005. Dominanat genes for leaf hair and flag leaf breadth in rice. In: 5^th International Rice Genetics Symposium, Manila, Philippines: 62.

Takamure I. and T. Kinoshita, 2001. Linkage analysis in chromosomes 3 and 6. RGN 18.

Yamamoto T., Y. Nakajima, K. Oeda, and H. Hirohara, 1997. Genetic and morphological studies on glabrousness of a somaclonal variant induced by anther culture in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Breed. Sci. 47: 1-6.