Abstract
This study examined 48 Aman rice landraces in Bangladesh for genetic variability, trait correlation, and direct and indirect trait impacts on grain yield. All fourteen (14) agro-morphological traits tested exhibited significant differences among the 48 Landraces. Flag leaf area, filled grain number per panicle, thousand-grain weight, grain length, grain breadth, and grain yield were recorded as highly heritable along with high genetic advance and genetic advance as percent of mean. Days to first flowering, filled grain number per panicle, thousand-grain weight, grain length, and kernel length demonstrated a strong favorable effects and associations with yield of grain at the genotypic as well as the phenotypic levels. We have used 69 SSR markers which are dispersed over 12 rice chromosomes to clarify the landraces' genetic divergence, with 328 alleles detected in the allelic diversity profile; 41 unique alleles were identified by 31 SSRs with RM303 producing 5 unique alleles solely. It was identified that, RM206 was found as the most effective marker as it has the highest PIC value. Additionally, three (3) clusters were spotted in the neighboring tree that joins, and 4 major groupings were observed in the dendrogram with a coefficient value of 0.77. Among 48 landraces, 40 were pure and 8 were admixed, with the L30 (Chapail), L32 (Kasra), L36 (Dudhshor), and L40 (Dadkhani) landraces the most diversified among of those studied. Data from this study provides agro-morphological and molecular traits insights with high breeding value to improve the yield of grain and other traits which contributes to the yield.