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Rice (Oryza sativa L.) belongs to the family poaceae (Gramineae) growing worldwide. Rice is one the three major staple foods consumed by half of the total population of the World annually. The genus Oryza was named by Linnaeus in 1753, and the haploid chromosome number of rice was determined by Kuwada in 1910 (Vanghan 2003). The domestication of wild rice probably started about 9000 years ago. The earliest and most convincing archaeological evidence for domestication of rice in Southeast Asia was discovered by Welhelm G. Solheim II in 1966 (Solheim, 1972). Ancient India is undoubtedly one of the oldest regions where cultivation of O. sativa began. The oldest grain samples excavated at Mohenjodaro (now in Pakistan) date back to about 2500 B.C., (Andrus and Mohammed, 1958). The oldest carbonized grains found in India date back to about 6750 B.C. (Sharma and Manda, 1980). Presently, the Asian cultivated common rice, O. sativa, is grown all over the world.
