Assessment of genetic variability among finger-millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn) genotypes through multivariate analysis

Abstract

The Field experiment was conducted to evaluate finger millet genotypes for its variability based on nine important morphological characters and find out the correlation coefficients among them. The experimental material comprised forty genotypes were evaluated in a randomized block design with three replications at the experimental field of the Department of Agricultural Botany, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola (MS) during the Kharif 2024 season. Analysis of variance revealed the statistical significant differences among the genotypes for all nine morphological traits investigated in present study. In the character association study, the seed yield per plant showed significant and positive correlation with plant height, ear head length, total number of tillers, number of productive tillers and 1000 grain weight, indicating their contribution towards yield enhancement. The Phenotypic Coefficient of Variation (PCV) was higher than Genotypic Coefficient of Variation (GCV). The high values of GCV and PCV were observed for grain yield per plant. All the characters studied exhibited the high heritability except for the harvest index. Among the genotypes studied, IC-475301, IC-0475519, IC-474069, IC-012985 and IC-475260 were found promising for grain yield which may be utilized for further improvement program. Whereas, based on principal component analysis, the entire variance was provided by four main components, of which PC-1 and PC-2 contributed 45.8% and 20.4%, respectively, to the total variability. Euclidean distance was used to divide the forty finger millet genotypes into six clusters. The largest number of genotypes (thirteen) in cluster V was followed by Cluster III, with ten genotypes. The maximum inter-cluster distance was exhibited by cluster I and cluster V (31.609), therefore, the genotypes from them may be used as parents for hybridization.