Developmental features and yields of three promising upland rice varieties in Zimbabwe

Three upland rice varieties: NERICA 1, 3 and 7 that were proved to be promising by previous trails in Zimbabwe, were selected as experimental materials to evaluate their developmental features and yields in irrigated conditions. The results indicate that plant height increased sharply first, and then slowly until the highest values that kept invariant. Tiller number per hill showed S-shaped curves which increased and reached relatively stable values first, then decreased slightly and finally increased again to produce the second time tiller. The leaf number per plant was apparently went up and down, which ascended to the peak values and then started to descend. NERICA 1 had many features which differed from NERICA 3 and NERICA 7, such as early maturing, short plant height, multiple tiller and multiple leave. It had the highest number of panicles and grains among the three varieties though it had nearly the same grain weight with NERICA 3 and NERICA 7. These results will be helpful to release these varieties in Zimbabwe. Keywords : Developmental feature, upland rice variety, yield, yield components, Zimbabwe African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(21), pp. 3208-3213