Assessing the correlation of genotypic and phenotypic responses of indica rice varieties under drought stress

Drought is one of the severe abiotic stress that affects the productivity of rice, an important staple crop that is consumed all over the world. The traits responsible for enhancing or adapting drought resistance in rice plants can be selected and studied to improve their growth under stress conditions. Experiments have been conducted on indica rice varieties comprising Sahabhagidhan as drought tolerant variety and IR64, MTU1010 categorized as drought sensitive varieties. Various root related biochemical and morphological traits such as root length, relative water content (RWC), xylem number, xylem area, proline content, and malondialdehyde content have been investigated for a comparative study of the plant response to drought stress in different rice varieties. The results of differential root transcriptome analysis have revealed that there is a notable difference in gene expression of OsPIP2;5 and OsNIP2;1 in various indica varieties of rice at different time periods of stress. The present work aims at assessing the correlation between genotypic and phenotypic traits that can contribute towards the emerging field of rice phenomics.