ABSTRACT: The agro-morphological characterization is fundamental in order to provide information for plant
breeding programs. The aim of the present study was to characterize 146 accessions of upland rice (Oryza sativa L.),
based on qualitative and quantitative agro-morphological descriptors. The experiment was conducted in Recife, state
of Pernambuco, Brazil, using a randomized block design with three replicates. Polymorphism was observed among
12 of 14 qualitative characters evaluated, whereas significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed for 11 of the 14
analysed quantitative traits. Genetic variance was higher than environmental variance and the average inheritability
coefficients were above 80 % for all characters, which ensures the predominance of the genetic components in the
differences observed among accessions. On the cluster analysis for qualitative traits the accessions were classified
in two groups with a total of 18 duplicates, whereas for the quantitative traits three groups were obtained with few
subgroups. The principal component analysis for quantitative traits showed great dispersion of the accessions. The
most divergent group of accessions included the genotypes Mitsukasane, Mie, Tomoe mochi, Ooba kirishima and
Nourin mochi 6, which showed a higher number of spicklets per plant. There is high variability among the rice
accessions from the germplasm collection studied, which presents great importance for breeding programs or for
genetic studies on this species.
Keywords: genetic variability, germplasm, ex-situ conservation, pre-breeding