%0 Journal Article %T Genetic diversity analysis aiding in selection of parents by RAPD markers in rice (Oryza sativa L) %A Immanuel Selvaraj. C %A Pothiraj Nagarajan %A K. Thiyagarajan %A M Bharathi %A and R Rabindran %J Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding %D 2011 %I Indian Society of Plant Breeders %X Genetic diversity among 26 rice genotypes was investigated using RAPD markers. The genotypes were screened for the leaf blastdisease reaction at two different environments. The average number of alleles amplified per primer was 9.03. Average number ofpolymorphic bands per primer was 6.80 with average polymorphism information content (PIC) of 0.264. Clustering based ondendrogram revealed two major clusters and 5 sub clusters. Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) revealed three major groups.The first coordinate does not discriminate any of the genotypes based on the geographical origin, but the second and thirdcoordinates differentiated South East Asian and South Asian genotypes clearly. Genetic diversity analysis of rice genotypes withRAPD marker system and phenotypic screening for blast resistance revealed that White Ponni (susceptible) and Moroberekan(resistant) were one among the genetically distant and contrasting parents for leaf blast resistance. There is no cleardiscrimination of the markers to distinguish leaf blast resistant and susceptible genotypes into separate clusters by the principalcoordinate analysis. %K Rice %K Genetic Diversity %K leaf blast resistance %K Magnaporthe grisea %K mapping population %U http://sites.google.com/site/ejpb2011/vol-2-2/Vol-2-2-165-178.pdf?attredirects=0