Kepelbagaian Sumber Genetik Padi di Bank Gen Padi MARDI Seberang Perai

Abstract

Rice Genebank located in MARDI Seberang Perai was the first seeds bank in Malaysia which was established in year 1989 with the objective for conserving the diversity of Malaysian rice germplasms from extinction and for utilization in future research and breeding program. The germplasms were gathered through collection expeditions in entire Malaysia, while the foreign seed varieties were gathered through collaboration project involved seeds exchange. Until now, a total of 12,258 accessions of rice are conserved in this Genebank comprised of 32% of traditional rice varieties, 35.7% of released rice varieties and breeding lines developed by MARDI and the remaining are consisted of introduced rice varieties. This study observed the rice accessions conserved in the genebank are highly variability. Several morphological traits of rice also shown highly significant correlations between traits; thus this finding is important for research and variety development for produce new high-yielding rice variety for accommodate the national food supply.