Rice (Oryza sativa L.) cold tolerance at the initial stages of development is a highly desirable trait to be incorporated into the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, cultivars, but selection for this trait must be performed under controlled temperature conditions, which limits the number of lines that can be evaluated. Knowledge of the inheritance of this trait is important to define breeding strategies. So the aim of this paper was to study the genetic basis of rice cold tolerance at the vegetative stage. Six genotypes with constrasting cold tolerance reactions were crossed in a diallel scheme without the reciprocals. The parents and the F1 and F2 generations were cultivated in a greenhouse until the V4 stage, when they were submitted to 10°C for ten days and evaluated for plant survival after seven days of recovery under normal temperature. The results obtained by the diallel analysis of the F1 generation indicated significance of both additive and non-additive effects, but the general combining ability was more important. The evaluation of the F2 generation revealed oligogenic inheritance with one or two dominant alleles responsible for cold tolerance in the cold tolerant parents and two complementary genes with recessive alleles segregating in the crosses involving sensitive and intermediate genotypes.
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