Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding

Plant morphological characters are universally undisputed descriptors applied for testing Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) of crop varieties. In the present study, 49 inbred lines of pearl millet evaluated for 29 morphological traits using DUS descriptors revealed significant variation among the inbreds for different characters. Most of the qualitative characters revealed considerable variation except for the traits like spike exertion, node pubescence, inter node pigmentation, leaf sheath pubescence, anther color, glume pigmentation and plant growth habit. Large variation among inbreds were found for the quantitative traits like days to 50% flowering (40.33–58.55 days), leaf blade length (33.53–72.13 cm), spike length (13.60–24.60 cm), number of productive tillers/plant (1.60–9.57), plant height (115.60–160.87 cm), 1000 grain weight (4.35–14.80 g), dry fodder yield/plant (57.74–84.37 g), green fodder yield/plant (192.34–517.53 g) and grain yield/plant (21.20–48.47 g). Dendrogram constructed on the basis of established quantitative characters among the individuals delineated 49 inbreds into six major clusters indicating ample diversity. The comprehensive morphological characterization of the lines with enormous diversity will facilitate their selection during pearl millet breeding programme and also provide documentation to protect them from any possible infringement.