Abstract:
Discovering new genetic resources for desirable morphological characteristics from traditional rice gene pool is
essential as there is a limited variation in the existing improved rice cultivars. The present study was carried out
to evaluate the morphological diversity of sixteen randomly selected traditional rice accessions. Their morphologi cal characteristics were evaluated at greenhouse conditions at Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna in
Yala season, 2016. The greenhouse experiment was carried out according to the randomized complete block de sign with four replicates. Observations were collected on 8 morphological traits and data were analyzed by factor
analysis and cluster analysis using SPSS. Rice accessions were classified according to, Standard Evaluation Sys tem of International rice research institute (IRRI) and it was found that sixteen rice accessions were categorized
into three different groups according to the plant height (tall, intermediate and semi-dwarf) and two different
groups according to the tillering ability (very low tillering, low tillering). According to principle component analy sis followed by the Ward linkage analysis and hierarchal dendrogram, evaluated rice accessions were classified
into four distinct clusters at rescaled cluster distance 7.5. The tested rice accessions have been dispersed in all the
four quadrants of in two-dimensional scatter plot diagram. This reveals the great diversity exists within the Sri
Lankan traditional rice accessions even in a random sample. The findings of the present study can be utilized for
the further research purposes or breeding programs in rice improvement
