Relationship of Root and Shoot Characters in Parent, F1 and F2 Populations of Rice

The direct and indirect contributions of root characters — root length, roots/plant, fresh and dry root weight on grain yield/plant were worked out from a 7 × 7 diallel set of rice hybrids. The materials were grown in pots with four replications. Path analysis was done at genotypic level of correlation.
The grain yield/plant showed positive correlation with all the root characters in parent, F₁ and F₂ except with roots/plant in F₁ population. Fresh root weight demonstrated positive direct effect on grain yield/plant in all the three generations. Roots/plant had highly positive direct effect in F₂. Direct effects were negative in respect of root length and dry root weight in F₂ generation.