ESTIMATING VARIABILITY, HERITABILITY, AND GENETIC ADVANCE OF RICE GENOTYPES IN MID-HILLS OF NEPAL

<p>Rice is an essential staple food in Nepal but researches and varietal improvement programs are rarely carried out due to inadequate variability study. The field study was diagnose the influence of genetic environmental factors on yield traits aid future rice breeding programs. Twelve genotypes were arranged randomized complete block design with three replications from July November 2019 at research Institute Agriculture Animal Science, Tribhuvan University, hilly area Nepal. Analysis variance showed significant difference for days 50% booting, flowering, plant height, panicle length, flag leaf area, filled grains per panicle, unfilled fertility percentage, effective tillers m<sup>-2</sup>, straw yield, grain 1000-grain weight, harvesting index indicating presence variation genotypes. LPN BR-1615 most promising genotype yield. values Phenotypic Coefficient Variation (PCV) higher than Genotypic (GCV) each trait low between them found thousand-grain index. Plant high heritability (i.e. 93.2%, 60.5% 92.6%, respectively) advance as percentage mean 46.5, 34.6 50.1, . Thus, experiment revealed that selections favoring would help future.</p>