Exploring the Genetic Diversity among Weedy Rice Accessions Differing in Herbicide Tolerance and Allelopathic Potential

Increasing agricultural productivity is indispensable to meet future food demand. Crop improvement programs rely heavily on genetic diversity. The success of weeds in the ecosystem can be attributed diversity and plasticity. Weedy rice, a major weed has diverse morphology phenology, implying wide Study was conducted genotype weedy rice accessions (n = 54) previously phenotyped for herbicide tolerance allelopathic potential using 30 SSR markers. Cultivated (CL163, REX) (RONDO, PI312777, PI338047) were also included study. Nei’s among (0.45) found higher than cultivated (0.24) but less (0.56). relationship population structure based evaluated. Herbicide-tolerant susceptible formed distinct clusters dendrogram, indicating their variation, whereas no distinction observed between non-allelopathic accessions. accession B2, which reported have high allelopathy tolerance, genetically from other rice. Results study will help leverage as both are closely related, thus having low breeding barrier.