Proceedings of The 7 th ACSA Conference 2011 45 Genetic Analysis of Superior Double Haploid Rice Lines Developed from Anther Culture Muhammad Syafii a,* , Bambang S. Purwoko b , Iswari S. Dewi c a Postgraduate of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia b Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia c Indonesian Center for Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Research and Development, Cimanggu, Bogor, Indonesia * Corresponding author: Postgraduate of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, 16680-Indonesia. Tel.: +62 251 862 9353; fax: +62 251 862 9353. syafii_m@yahoo.com Abstract Rice is the most important food commodity in Indonesia. The need for rice continues to increase with the population increase. Plant breeding‘s objective to obtain high-yielding varieties is an attempt to increase production plateu. Biotechnology is one of the breeding aproaches using tissue culture and genetic engineering techniques. The availability and diversity of plant genetic resources are important factors to develop high yielding varieties with desirable traits. This study was aimed to investigate the agronomic characters of double haploid lines developed from anther culture, evaluate genetic diversity, phenotypic variations and broad sense heritability of double haploid lines developed from anther culture, and to obtain rice genotypes potential as superior lines. Analysis of 18 genotypes showed there was diversity of agronomic characters among the rice double haploid genotypes. Characters of dry weight-based grain (yield) per hectare and the number of empty grain per panicle had high level of genetic variability, while other characters had rather low to low level of genetic variability. Yield per hectare in KP44223 line was the highest (4537.8 kg / ha or 4.5 tons / ha) among the lines, even higher than that of conrol varieties, Ciherang and Celebes. The characters of plant height, flowering age, harvesting time, panicle length, number of empty grain/ panicle, 1000 grain weight and yield per hectarehad high broad sense heritability, suggested that those characters can be used as selection characters to improve crop performance Keywords: anther culture, double haploid, rice Introduction Rice is the most important food commodity in Indonesia. In addition, rice is also a major source of carbohydrate material for Indonesian people. The need for rice continues to increase with population increase. (Prasetyo 2008), Plant breeding to obtain high-yielding varieties is one attempt to overcome rice production plateu. Utilizing biotechnology through tissue culture technique and genetic engineering could be one of the appraches in plant breeding (Somantri et al. 2003). The availability and diversity of rice genetic resources is an important factor in developing high yielding varieties with desirable traits. Development of new high yielding varieties of rice in Indonesia has long been conducted since the early 1970s. After the 1980's breeding toward new high yielding varieties (VUB) started to be intensified to obtain varieties that are responsive to fertilizer and high quality of rice, such as IR64, Membramo, Cisadane and Ciherang (Samaullah 2007). Conventional breeding to develop new rice varieties require a long time (7-10 years), especially the time for selection process to obtain pure lines. Utilization of modern technologies (biotechnology) such as anther culture is expected to shorten the selection process thus saving time, effort, and cost. Dewi and Purwoko (2001), states that the researchers have applied the anther culture technique to obtain rice lines that are resistant to pests and diseases, quality of rice as well as tolerant of environmental