Abstract:
Suduru samba is a traditional rice variety popular among most of the rice consumers in Sri Lanka.
This cultivar produces white color, short round (samba) grain with higher rice grain cooking quality,
good taste and aroma. However, susceptibility to lodging, neck blast and photosensitivity are major
disadvantages of this variety. With the objective of developing shorter plants with desirable
characters, seeds of Suduru samba were mutated using gamma irradiation. After the phenotypic
selection and advancement of selfing generations two mutants SSR 26 and SSR 8 were evaluated
on yield trials with standard checks Bg 357, Bg 360 and parent Suduru samba. The grain yield was
recorded as 2.27, 2.90, and 1.01 t ha–1 for SSR 26, SSR 8 and Suduru samba, respectively. Further
SSR 8 and SSR 26 having intermediate plant height and strong culm, showed resistance to lodging
compared to the parent variety, Suduru samba,
