Local rice landraces are preferred in rainfed direct seeded situations because of their ability to withstand drought. These genotypes are low in productivity, but have good root systems and physiological parameters like RWC, epicuticular wax for drought tolerance, which are adaptive traits for drought prone environments (O' Toole, 1982). There is a need to use the sources of these attributes in breeding programmes to combine drought tolerance and productivity (Blum, 1979). Ultimately, the grain yieldin rice under drought conditions is very important since survival alone is not sufficient based on economic reasons (Fukai and Cooper, 1995). Moisture stress during the reproductive stage leads to pronounced spikelet sterility due to impaired biochemical and physiological events (Cruz and O'Toole, 1984 and Ekanayake et al., 1989). Kobata et al. (1994) postulated that sterility in rice is because of dehydration of the root zone and hence suggested deep and thick roots and moderate tillering as varietalcharacteristics for drought tolerance. The results presented in this paper are based on an effort made to combine productivity and drought tolerance in upland rice.
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