Water deficit is one of the most important abiotic stress limiting upland rice yield in the "Cerrado" region of Brazil. Selecting drought tolerant cultivars is an important strategy to overcome this constraint. Two greenhouse experiments were conducted at Santo Antônio de Goiás, state of Goiás, Brazil, to compare the response of normalized transpiration rate (NTR) of three modern (BRS Primavera, BRSMG Curinga and BRS Soberana) and one traditional (Douradão) upland rice cultivars to soil water deficit during the vegetative and reproductive growth stages. This information will support breeding strategies to improve rice yield in a drought-prone target population environments (TPE) in Brazil. NTR and the total fraction of transpirable soil water (FTSW) were... |