Agro-morphological characterization and digitization of job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) germplasm: A minor cereal crop of northeastern India

Thirty-seven Job’s tears accessions of India’s northeastern hill region (NEH) were characterized for nine quantitative and eight qualitative traits. Prominent furrow and elliptic shape of grain in soft-shelled types are supposed to be the most important trait that indicates the domestication trend of the crop in NEH region. Principal component analysis showed that agro-morphological traits, namely time for first heading, days to 80% maturity, seed yield/plant (g), number of culms, and length of culm (cm) have significantly contributed to the diversity. Correlation analysis has shown significant correlations between different yield-contributing traits. Diversity and potential traits in each cluster were also identified through cluster analysis. Grid mapping was done to identify the areas for collection of trait-specific germplasm like higher number of culms, length of culm and hundred seed weight. The germplasm accessions IC0332644, IC0416831 and IC0540173 were identified as promising genotypes.