Rice is major staple food crop of world including India. Today with climate changes, all crops including rice expose to extreme water deficit condition, which adversely affects crop growth and yield. Drought is one of the most damaging abiotic stresses. Different plants response differently to drought stress. These responses include changes in gene expression. Abiotic stresses such as drought induced diverse physiological and molecular responses in plants. To determine physiological and molecular determinants of drought stress and screening of drought tolerant rice varieties, an experiment was conducted in a research station at Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut using thirteen rice varieties and two irrigation conditions (well watered and water stressed). The present study indicated that rice varieties N-22 and PD-11 are drought tolerant while IR-64 and PB-1 are drought sensitive rice variety. Drought tolerance of those varieties were measured based on rate of leaf rolling score. Leaf rolling score was positively correlated to chlorophyll content and proline accumulation. Significant increase in the proline content was also observed under drought stress. Out of thirteen rice varieties five showed the existence of OsLEA 30 gene under water stressed condition.
