Developmental Genetics Analysis for Plant Height in indica Hybrid Rice Across Environments

The developmental genetics of plant height was analyzed from two groups of three-line indica hybrid rice at two environmental conditions based on the NCII design, using the additive-dominant developmental genetics models and the statistic methods. The results showed that the rice genotypes and environmental conditions could both affect plant height, and the effects of environment on plant height decreased gradually with plant development. Additive and dominant effects both governed the performance of plant height at all developmental stages. However, the degrees of effect varied among the rice genotypes. Moreover, the interaction between environments and genotypes also affected plant height. The genetic effects differed at most developmental stages. Furthermore, the expression of additive effect was more active than that of dominant effect. Conditional interaction effects with environment also influenced plant height during genetic development, especially at the early stage. Mid-parent heterosis (HMP) increased gradually with the developmental stage of plant height, and maximized at the latest stage, whereas the heterosis over the better parent (HBP) showed small differences among the genotypes, and kept stable at the later stage, with positive numeric value. At most developmental stages, conditional HMP was positively significant, while conditional HBP was negatively significant. All above results suggest that HMP and HBP have some new expressions in all developmental periods and the levels and directions are quite different.