Morphological characterization and multivariate analysis in little millet

One hundred and ten little millet genotypes were evaluated for 12 morphological traits. When the Principal Component Analysis was performed, the first three PCs exhibited 60.74 per cent of the total variation shown by the 12 traits studied. The 110 genotypes were grouped into five basic groups. The results revealed that single plant grain yield, flag leaf length, thousand grain weight, days to 50 per cent flowering and plant height were the major traits contributing for the overall variability implying that these traits would meet the target of little millet improvement programme. Elucidation of morphological data to determine the pattern of variability within 110 little millet genotypes studied led to the recognition of four clusters. Cluster analysis indicated that little millet genotypes from different geographical regions were observed to group together. The reason could be either due to the fact that selection criteria for the specific traits might be similar particularly based on the adaptive nature of the environment or the same type of consumer preference. This approach would help to identify the traits of importance that possessed the maximum variability for evolving high yielding little millet genotypes.