This study was carried out to obtain the basic information for breeding cold-tolerant rice varieties with high yield-productivity through wide crosses between indica and japonica rice. Genetic analysis was conducted using 55 F1 s obtained from half-diallel crosses among eleven cultivars of various origin including indica and japonica rice. Screening for cold tolerance was done with cold-water irrigation after transplanting until ripening stage. Both general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) effects were highly significant in all characters associated with dry matter accumulation at 30 and 50days after cold-water irrigation (DAC). The variance of GCA was much larger than that of SCA in plant height, shoot dry weight per plant (DWP), crop growth rate (CGR) and cold-water response index (CRI) of these characters except CRI of shoot dry weight per plant. The DWP, CGR and CRI of these characters of Gaochan 102, Tong88-7 and TR22183 were markedly higher than those of the others. GCA effects of these varieties on DWP, CGR and their CRI were also higher than those of the others, indicating that they are useful as promising parents for breeding cold-tolerant varieties. Analysis of genetic parameters for 11~times 11 half-diallel F1 s revealed that inter-locus gene interaction were concerned in the expression of plant height at 50 DAC, CRI of DWP at 50 DAC, and CRI of CGR, and that intra-locus gene interaction for plant height and the other characters were partial dominance and over-dominance, respectively. Narrow-sense heritability (h2 N ) was the highest in plant height as 0.729, and the lowest in CRI of DWP at 30 DAC as 0.048, suggesting that selection for cold tolerance will be quite effective in case that the selection criterion is the performance itself.f.

• Long-Zhi Han
• Hee-Jong Koh