1Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, ANGRAU, Rajendranagar
2Economic Botany, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Regional station, Hyderabad
3Department of Plant Physiology, College of Agriculture, ANGRAU, Rajendranagar
*E-mail: rajeeb25@gmail.com
Online published on 19 December, 2013.
Genetic divergence was she died in finger millet with 11 characters which partitioned the forty eight germplasm lines into eight clusters. Maximum no. of germplasm lines (33) were included in cluster I followed by 5 germplasm lines in cluster 2, 4 germplasm lines in cluster IV and 1 each in cluster V, VI, VII. The maximum intra cluster distance was shown by cluster VIII. Maximum divergence was observed between cluster VI and VIII, while minimum was between cluster II and VIII, Suggesting more variability in genetic makeup of germplsm lines included in these clusters.
Among the 11 quantitative characters studied the most important character contributing to the diversity was main ear length followed by total no of fingers on the main ear, grain yield per plot, grain yield per plant, main ear width, total no of basal tillers per plant, no of leaves on the main tiller, total no of productive tiller per plant, finger width, finger length. Disuse parents have been identified based on genetic divergence for improving finger millet. Higher yielder clusters are VII, I and II.
Finger millet, cluster, diversity divergence
