CHARACTERIZATION AND EVALUATION OF FINGER MILLET (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) REFERENCE SET AND WHITE SEEDED ACCESSIONS FOR AGROMORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS
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Date
2011-11-18
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University of Agricultural Sciences GKVK, Bangalore
Abstract
Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) is popularly known as Ragi, it has
dual importance as source of food grain as well as straw. Considering the importance of
finger millet, an effort was made in this investigation to assess the variability, character
association both in reference set (274 genotypes) and white seeded accessions (64),
beside identification of distinguishing characters for DUS characterization and superior
white seeded genotypes in finger millet during Kharif 2010. Analysis of variance in both
trials revealed that highly significant differences for all the quantitative characters.
Higher estimates of PCV and GCV, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean
were evident for finger length and number of productive tillers per plant in both trials.
Correlation analysis in both trials revealed the characters viz., flag leaf width and ear
weight per plant had significant association with grain yield per plant. Path coefficient
analysis revealed that ear weight per plant had the highest positive direct effect on grain
yield in both experiment. Using Mahalanobis D2 statistic, 274 reference set and 64 white
seeded accessions were grouped into eight and five divergent clusters, respectively. Wide
genetic variability was indicated by the intra and inter cluster distances. Based on cluster
means, cluster IV in reference set and V in white seeded accessions ranked first. It was
also found that among all the characters, days to flowering in reference set and grain
yield in white seeded accessions had highest contribution towards the genetic diversity.
Morphological characters considered in this study are appropriate because accessions
distributed all over sub descriptors. Based on the characterization, six characters were
selected as distinguishing characters besides reference/example genotypes were also
identified for all the characters and sub descriptors which are useful in evaluating of new
varieties for DUS characterization.