Assessment of Physiological, Biochemical and Yield Attributes of Rice Cultivars under Elevated Ozone Stress
The present study aimed to assess the response of 15 rice cultivars exposed to elevated ozone stress. The plants were exposed to 100 ppb ozone (10:00– 17:00 h) for 30 days at the reproductive stage. Elevated ozone significantly alters the physiological, biochemical, growth and yield traits of all test rice cultivars. Elevated ozone exposure significantly decreased photosynthetic rate maximally in MDU5 (42.90%) and TRY(R)2 showed maximum reduction in stomatal conductance (42.39%) and chlorophyll content (41.22%). In terms of yield traits, a decrease in tiller number, number of effective tillers, number of filled spikelets per panicle and 1000 grain weight over the control were also observed. The multivariate analysis with a total variance of 58.86% categorized the 15 rice cultivars into ozone sensitive (TRY(R) 2, ASD16, ADT(R)45 and MDU5), moderately ozone sensitive (ASD18, ADT43, Rice MDU6, ADT36 and ADT37), moderately ozone tolerant (ADT(R)48 CO47 and Rice CO51) and ozone tolerant (Rice TPS5, Anna(R)4 and PMK(R)3) under 100 ppb ozone. The present results revealed that the ozone tolerant rice cultivars would be recommended to cultivate in the regions experiencing high ozone concentration.