1Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Agriculture, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar-751 003, Odisha.
2Directorate of Research on Women in Agriculture, Bhubaneswar-751 003, Odisha.
3National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi-110 012.
*Author for Correspondence: E-mail: laxminrcwa@yahoo.co.in
Eleven germplasm collections of common millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) along with one check variety were evaluated under 10 environments during kharif 2003 to kharif 2004 at the Central Research Station, OUAT, Bhubaneswar. Observations recorded on 14 metric traits including grain yield were analyzed to assess the extent of genetic variability and the magnitude of character association in the genotypes tested. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences due to genotypes, environments and genotype x environment interactions for all the characters. Germplasm accessions exhibited significant variability for different traits. KCM 120 was the earliest to flower and high yielding with the highest panicle number and harvest index. KCM 424, KCM 14 and KCM 325 were late maturing but high yielders having higher mean performance for most of the characters. Moderate to high estimates of heritability along with moderate to high genetic advance (GA) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) were observed for grain yield and all the component traits except plant height and panicle number. Significant positive association of grain yield with plant height, flag leaf length, fl ag leaf area, panicle length, panicle weight, panicle yield, biological yield, harvest index and 1000-grain weight was observed. Path analysis pooled over environments revealed that flag leaf length, panicle weight, 1000-grain weight and plant height had maximum contribution towards grain yield.
Character association, Common millet, Genetic variability, Panicum miliaceum, Proso millet
