Title: Performance evaluation of aerobic rice genotypes in some provinces of Iran

Author:  Ali Moumeni

Abstract: Water shortage, drought years, and competition for it’s consumption among different sectors including agriculture, especially in rice production are becoming a major challenge. Hence, the development of a water-saving technology will be a serious need. To this, an experiment with about 10 diverse exotic aerobic rice genotypes together with several Iranian rice promising lines and improved varieties were observationally/ preliminarily evaluated in several provinces such as Golestan, Kogiloye-va-BoyerAhmad, and Lorestan during 2019-2022. Results of statistical analysis on collected data at different experimental sites indicated that significant differences for almost all traits such as days from seeding to 50 % flowering (FLR), plant height (PLH), fertile tilers (TLR), panicle length (PL), 1000-grain weight (TGW), grain yield (YLD), harvest index (HI) and water use efficiency (WUE). Estimated water consumption at different sites in Gorgan, Yasuj, and Khoramabad was about 7000 to 8500 m3, which could be 20 to 40 % lesser than the normal irrigated situation in these areas. For grain yield, as an important character, together with yield components, results indicated that several aerobic genotypes including AR1, AR2 AR4, AR5, and AR6 showed better performance that the others. These genotypes also showed better performance for HI as well as WUE, therefore they could be selected for further and advanced trials in three sites.

Keywords: Aerobic rice, water shortage, promising line, unsaturated soil, food security.

Contact: alimoumeni@yahoo.com