Supremacy of rice genotypes under aerobic condition for mitigating water scarcity and future climate change

The increase in water scarcity, now made the researchers to look for various ways to decrease water use in rice production and increase the water use efficiency. One of the approaches that lead to a considerable amount of savings in water use by rice is aerobic cultivation, which minimizes the methane emission also. In this light of view, an investigation was carried out to study the morpho-physiological traits and yield potential of six rice genotypes viz., PMK 3, ASD 16, MDU 3, MDU 5, CO 47 and RM 96019 under aerobic condition. The parameters viz., plant height, total drymatter production, leaf area index, R:S ratio were found to be higher in the rice cultivar PMK 3. The physiological and biochemical traits viz., proline content, total phenolics, catalase and superoxide dismutase enzymes activities were found to be significantly higher in PMK 3 rice cultivar. Yield and yield components such as panicle length, number of productive tillers, number of spikelets per panicle, fertility co-efficient, panicle harvest index, grain yield and harvest index were recorded. The genotype PMK 3 recorded higher yield (4298 kg/ha) followed by ASD 16 (3068 kg/ha) and CO 47 recorded lower yield (1407 kg/ha) under aerobic condition.   Key words: Aerobic rice, morphology, physiological traits and yield.