AGRONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL DRYLAND RICE VARIETIES OF THE FAR WEST OF SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL

Abstract

Dryland rice varieties are conserved in situ on farm in the far west of the state of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. The objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance of 34 local dryland rice varieties from this region, which they represent four morphological groups. The experiments were carried out in two municipalities in Santa Catarina (Anchieta and Florianópolis), in complete randomized blocks design with four replications. The differences were significant (p ≤ 0.05) for the effects of genotype, environment, and genotype x environment interaction, for the stem length variable. All other variables showed significant differences for the effects of genotype and interaction and not significant for the environment. Yield, stem length, number of tillers per plant, number of branches and grains per panicle ranged from 1,458.59 to 4,193.80 kg ha-1, 69.2 to 113.1 cm, 2.5 to 4.0 tillers per plant, 8.5 to 10.2 branches and 75.9 to 97 grains, respectively. The highest yield values and stem length were obtained in Florianópolis. Resistance to lodging was greater in Anchieta, local of origin of the varieties. Yield, stem length and the number of grains showed dependence by the chisquare test (p ≤ 0.05), in relation to the conservation time of the varieties by the farmers. Varieties grain medium to medium-elongated and color red, classified as special grains, obtained yields equivalent to the others. The local dryland rice varieties studied show differences in agronomic performance and stability, as well as potential for use as base populations in rice breeding programs.