Physiological performance of traditional rice landraces affected by water stress during vegetative stage under pot culture condition

An experiment was conducted to establish the physiological performance of traditional rice landraces under water stress given at the vegetative stage under pot culture condition. Drought is one of the serious threats on rice productivity. Traditional rice landraces shows substantial adaptability to drought so eight popular rice land races, namely Rascadam, Kothamalli Samba, Kaattu Samba, Kallundai, Kuliyadichan, Milagu Samba, Cochin Samba and Muttrina sannam from Tamilnadu, India and two popular check varieties, namely IR64 (susceptible check), N22 (tolerant check) were used to study the physiological performance for drought tolerance. These genotypes were subjected to drought under pot culture condition at glass house in the Department of Crop Physiology, TNAU, Coimbatore. The crops were imposed with drought during vegetative stage by withholding irrigation till the soil moisture reaches below 20 per cent. The experiment was laid out in factorial experiment under completely randomized design (FCRD) with three replications. Chlorophyll Stability Index (CSI), Relative water content (RWC), and Proline content of leaves were measured.