Paper Title
The Effect of Days to Flowering on Yield Components of Sri Lankan Rice ORYZA Sativa L

Abstract
New rice varieties should be developed to address the food security for the sustainability during increasing food demand in climate change. Sri Lanka has a very rich rice germplasm which has not been fully characterized to utilize its important traits for crop yield potential. Days to flowering may associated with yield components. The objective of the study was to determine the relationship between days to flowering (DF) and yield components. Two hundred and eighty four Sri Lankan traditional rice accessions from Plant Genetic Resources Center which was grown at Rice Research and Development Institute, Batalagoda, Sri Lanka during short day season (Maha) in 2013 was used for the study. There was a large variation in DF among accessions which ranged from 57 to 139 days .Total panicle weight (TPW), filled grains per panicle (FGPP), hundred grain weight (HGW)and filling percentage (FP) varied from 0.1 to 50.2g, 5 to 265, 0.23 to 5.1g and 5 to 100 % respectively. There was a significant negative correlation between DF and TPW (r = - 0.307, P = 0.000,) and DF and total grains per panicle, (r = -109, P = 0.037). There was a significant positive correlation between DF and HGW (r = 0.128, P = 0.027), and DF and FP(r =0.203, P = 0.000) Variation in DF among selected accessions may be controlled by different combinations of flowering time genes leading to a variation in magnitude of yield components. Keywords: Flowering time, Rice, Yield components