Participatory and molecular marker assisted pure line selection for refinement of three premium rice landraces of Koraput, India

ABSTRACTThe Jeypore-Koraput tract in Odisha, India, known to be the secondary center of origin of rice, still houses a large number of rice landraces. The low yielding local landraces, despite high consumer preference, are gradually facing extinction due to lack of purity and admixtures resulting in poor marketability of the produce. The study is an attempt to purify Kalajeera, Machhakanta, and Haladichudi, three highly popular landraces, whose field populations displayed high levels of genetic variability. A molecular marker assisted pure line approach combined with the farmer participation in the selection process resulted in selection of relatively high yielding pure lines of Kalajeera (5), Haladichudi (11), and Machhakanta (1), after four cycles of selection. The high promise shown by the selected pure lines suggest that farmer participatory approach can effectively complement the breeding approaches in refinement of elite landraces of rice.