A population panel comprising 126 newly developed restorer lines that can be utilized in hybrid rice breeding in future were evaluated for 16 agro-morphological and grain quality traits by principal component analysis for determining the pattern of genetic diversity and relationship among individuals. Agro- morphological traits included days to fifty per cent flowering, plant height, productive tillers, basal internode thickness, culm strength, flag leaf length, panicle length, number of filled grains per panicle, panicle exsertion, panicle secondary branching, spikelet fertility, 100 seed weight, single plant yield and grain quality traits were kernel length, kernel breadth and kernel LB ratio. The cumulative variance of was explained by six principal components. Component 1 had the contribution from the traits viz., productive tillers, culm strength, spikelet fertility, kernel length and panicle secondary branching which accounted of the total variability. The remaining variability of , , , and was consolidated in component 2, component 3, component 4, component 5 and component 6 respectively. The grain quality traits viz., kernel length, kernel breadth and kernel LB ratio were loaded as major traits in PC6, PC5 and PC4 respectively. The trait single plant yield was the predominant trait in component 6. The results of present study identified the key economic traits, which accounts for maximum variation in the restorer lines under study which will be greatly beneficial to exploit in the hybrid rice breeding programmes. | Assessment of genetic diversity in new restorer lines of hybrid rice
