Yield Performance of Two Drought Tolerant Rice Mutants in Boro Season at Two Semi Drought Prone Areas of Bangladesh

Climate change is the biggest challenge for sustainable crop production all over the world, where drought is one of the outrageous factors. Two experiments were conducted to examine the suitability and productivity of drought tolerant two rice mutants cultivating in Boro season. The experiments were consisted of two mutants, derived from NERICA rice variety namely, RM-16(N)-8-1, RM-16(N)-10-1 and one Boro variety BRRI dhan58 and they were conducted at the farmer’s field of two semi drought prone areas as Mymensingh and Jamalpur districts of Bangladesh from December, 2021 to May, 2022. The experiments were laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Higher yield (7.01 tha-1) was recorded in the mutant RM-16(N)-10-1 compared to the variety BRRI dhan58 (6.46 tha-1). Higher days to maturity was found in BRRI dhan58 (151.50 days) compared to the mutants RM-16(N)-10-1 (150.50 days) and RM-16(N)-8-1 (148 days). The highest effective tiller hill-1 (25.10) and number of filled grain panicle-1 (142.50) were recorded in the mutant RM-16(N)-10-1 where in RM-16(N)-8-1, effective tiller hill-1 and number of filled grain panicle-1 were 22.88 and 138.92 respectively, and in BRRI dhan58 effective tiller hill-1 was 21.56 and number of filled grain panicle-1 was 142.46. Higher 1000 seed wt. (23.53 g) was found for RM-16(N)-10-1 compared to other two genotypes. And the maximum yield potential (7.01 tha-1) was recorded in the mutant RM-16(N)-10-1. Furthermore, it will be useful for Bangladesh to choose drought tolerant genotypes with high yield potential and future breeding stock.