Abstract

MONTOYA ARAMBURU, María A; RODRIGUEZ, Nohelia; PEREZ-ALMEIDA, Iris  and  MARIN, Carlos. Identification of morphological descriptors relevant for the distinctiveness of rice venezuelan varieties and advanced lines with aims of intellectual protection ¹. Agronomía Trop. [online]. 2008, vol.58, n.3, pp.223-232. ISSN 0002-192X.

Varietal characterization, certification and intellectual property rights are established by a series of morphological, chemical and physiological descriptors, which allow the fulfillment of the requirements of distinction, uniformity and stability tests. Rice is an important cereal in Venezuela permanently undergoing genetic improvement in search of varieties with better qualities. In this work, 45 Venezuelan rice materials were characterized. They were planted in Araure during February to July 2005 using an alpha lattice design with two replications. Plant materials included 13 commercial varieties and 32 elite lines from the National Breeding Programs. It was determined that among the 41 descriptors suggested by the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), during the stages of flowering, maturation and post harvesting (seed, culinary and milling quality), only 16 characters contribute with greater weight to the total variance in order to discriminate the materials under the studied environmental conditions; these were limb length; days to flowering; number of panicles per plant; panicle length; width, thickness and length of the grain; weight of 1 000 grains; color of caryopsides; number of full and vain grains per panicle; culm strength; whole grain, chalky grain and white belly grain percentages; and amylose content.

Keywords : Oryza sativa L; varieties; morphological descriptors; breeder’s rights; intellectual property.