Fitty one promising landraces of rice cultivars of three districts viz. Nadia, 24 Parganas(N) and Murshidabad of West Bengal were taken for characterization, estimation of genetic variability, genetic diversity and intermelation among them based on forty six agromorphological characters. The field eperiment was caried out at the Zonal Adaptive Research Station, Krishnagar, Nadia, West Bengal during Kharif scason of three consecutive years of 2006, 2007 and 2008. The land is mainly gangetic

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... ium plain with neutral pH (pH-6), low availability of nitrogen and phosphate and potash content. Obscrvations of various qualitative and quantitative traits were recorded at the different stages of growth. Distinctiveness. Uniformity and Stability (DUS) test was done on twenty eight qualitative traits following the National test guidelines, supplied by Rice Research Institute, Rajendarnagar, Hyderabad. Mean, standand eor of mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation were calculated for each quantitative rait to evplore the variability, if any, among the cultivars (Singh and Choudhury, 1977). Genotypic corelations were. in general, higher than the phenotypic correlations and thus suggested that the observed relations among the characters were due to genetic factors. Genetic divergence was assessed among 51 landrace genotypes which were grouped into eleven clusters. Cluster mean was done and the characters which contributed maximum towards genetic divergence among the genotypes were culm diameter>culm lengthgrain length>Plant height (seedling)>sterile lemma length>grain length/breadth ratio>ligule length> flag leaf angle>culm number in the descending order.