Abstract

Hybrid rice technology is aneffective way for increasing rice production to meet the future rice demands of growing population. Inadequate numbers of restorer and maintainer lines are the major constrains for the development of location-specific rice hybrids. Present investigation involves the identification of restorers and maintainers for tarai regions of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Under this study, three cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) lines and 43 elite rice genotypes from diverse source of origin were crossed in line × tester fashion and test crosses were evaluated in order to identify potential restorers and maintainers. Genotypes were categorized as restorers (> 80% spikelet fertility), partial restorers (20 to 79% spikelet fertility), partial maintainers (10–20% spikelet fertility) and maintainers (< 10% spikelet fertility). The F1’s expressed different fertility reactions with different CMS lines of the same cytoplasmic source. Out of 45 male lines UPR 3764-5-13 and UPR 3744-7-1-1 behaved as maintainer with two CMS lines and IR 09N522 and CT 19533-3-4-2-2P-2P found restorer with all the CMS lines. The identified maintainers and restorers can play a pivotal role in hybrid rice development.