Evaluation location: Arkansas, United States
A diverse collection of 409 Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.) accessions originating from 79 countries was fingerprinted with 36 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and evaluated for 18 agromorphological traits. Genetically, the accessions clustered into five ancestral groups (subpopulations), indica, aus, aromatic (Group V), tropical japonica, and temperate japonica, based on model-based structure analysis. A strong relationship between subpopulations and geographical distribution was observed. This rice diversity panel with the accompanying genetic and phenotypic information provides a valuable foundation for association mapping, understanding the basis of both genotypic and phenotypic differences within and between subpopulations, and rice improvement programs. The results of this study were published in Crop Science 51:2021-2035.