Principle Component Analysis among Exotic and Egyptian Rice Genotypes

Twenty-five rice genotypes with two Egyptian rice varieties: Giza 178 and Sakha 105 were all cultivated in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with two replications under saline soil at at El_Sirw Agriculture Research Station northern part of Delta, Egypt during the growing season 2012. This study aimed to evaluate the potential divergence among tested genotypes and to define the role of agronomic traits in the total variation by using principle component analysis. Results showed that high variability was noticed between the testes genotypes, and indicated that only four principle components PC1, PC2, PC3 and PC4 were significant as they had an Eigenvalue greater than 1.0 (2.3967, 2.1444, 1.7225, 1.0618) respectively, explained together 73.3% of existed variation between genotypes. The first principle component PC1 explained the highest variation 24%, followed by other components PC2, PC3 and PC4 which explained (21.4, 17.2, 10.6) % of the total variation. Results also revealed that days to flowering and number of filled grains per panicle were associated with PC1, whereas three traits (tillers per plant, panicles number per plant and thousand grain weight) were gathered in PC2, and the PC3 consisted of (panicle length, panicle fertility and grain yield per plant), while the last component PC4 contained both traits flag leaf area and plant height. It was concluded that the divergence between rice genotypes in our study provide a wide genetic base for breeders to improve rice