SCREENING OF RICE VARIETIES TOLERANT AND SUSCEPTIBLE TO IRON TOXICITY IN INLAND VALLEY SWAMPS (IVS) IN SIERRA LEONE

Iron toxicity is a nutrient disorder, which is brought about by the uptake of Fe (II) in amounts that disrupt or over-expressseveral metabolic processes, resulting in damage to the rice plant. A pot experiment was conducted in a greenhouse at Sierra Leone Agricultural Business Initiatives (SABI) Center Newton to enable the screening of many different varieties thereby resulting in the identification of both tolerant and susceptible varieties that could be used as breeding materials for rice improvement programs in the tropics. The hot spot iron toxic soils used in the pot were weighed at a uniform rate The parameters or items of measurement to be looked at could be the dry weight of root, dry weight of stem, dry weight of filled grain, dry weight of unfilled grains, plant height (cm) of the genotypes, tiller number of the genotypes, leaf area (cm2)of the genotypes, phenotypic acceptability of the genotypes, Iron-toxicity score of the genotypes Based on their performance in terms of toxicity scores, dry root weight, stem weight, leaf area, unfilled grains, filled grains, tiller count, plant height, and phenotypic acceptability the following varieties have been identified as iron toxicity tolerant with high yield potential Gbassay, Rok-24, Chim, kiamp.