Handling segregating population, especially in early generation is a tricky issue. Due to segregation, identification of desirable plant types is quite difficult and at the same time, there are chances of losing them. Moreover, the resource constraints also force the breeders to keep the size of population low. Using, F₂’s and F₃’s of seven different crosses, involving rainfed lowland rice germplasms, two methods were followed to handle the segregating populations from F₂ onwards. In the first case, one hundred plants were selected from F₂ and the seed of one panicle plant^-1 were sown in F₃ generation in individual panicle^-1 progeny-row system. In the second, five seed from each of selected 100 individual plant were picked and a separate bulk population of 500 seeds of each cross were planted. The analysis of these early generation selection data was done to have an idea of the variability being captured to two different modes of selection. The two crosses IR70810 and IR70820 were effective for single plant decent as compare to single seed decent selection. The paper describes in detail and highlights the methods of analysis and the output to draw conclusions about handling of early generation segregating materials in breeding programme.