Formation of core set in Indian and African finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn] germplasm accessions

An investigation was made to develop a core set from the base germplasm involving 1000 accessions of Finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn] using different morpho-agronomic data on 11 quantitative and 12 qualitative characters. A core set of 77 accessions were selected using the software Power core (v. 1.0). Regarding geographical distribution of germplasm accessions in core set, same trend was observed as in case of base germplasm. The mean, range, variances, frequency distribution, Shannon-Weaver diversity index and phenotypic correlation values of core set and base germplasm did not differ significantly indicating that the core set represents the base germplasm and the entire diversity has been captured in the core set. The correlation analysis revealed that the association among yield and yield attributing characters found in base germplasm were also found in core set. The characters viz., plant height, finger length, number of productive tillers per plant, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to maturity and ear weight per plant could be used as indirect selection for high grain yield in finger millet.