Characterization of eastern African finger millet germplasm for qualitative and quantitative characters at ICRISAT

Reddy, V G and Upadhyaya, H D and Gowda, C L L and Singh, Sube (2009) Characterization of eastern African finger millet germplasm for qualitative and quantitative characters at ICRISAT. Journal of SAT Agricultural Research, 7. 9pp.. ISSN 0973-3094

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Abstract

A total of 5949 finger millet (Eleusine coracana) germplasm accessions is conserved at ICRISAT genebank. Of these, more than 2000 accessions from five East African countries were evaluated for qualitative and quantitative traits at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India in the rainy season during 1977 to 2002. Substantial diversity was observed in all the characters studied. Diversity was more among the countries than within the country. Flowering time ranged from 50 to 120 days. The early flowering accessions are found in Burundi and late flowering accessions in Ethiopia. Plant height ranged from 55 to 240 cm with a mean of 104 to 120 cm. Dwarf accessions were from Kenya, whereas tallest accessions were from Uganda. Basal tillers per plant ranged from 1 to 40 and culm branches per plant ranged from 0 to 10. The range of other characters was also recorded: flag leaf blade length 100 to 700 mm, flag leaf blade width 5 to 20 mm, flag leafsheath length 8 to 230 mm, peduncle length 80 to 450 mm, exsertion 0 to 360 mm, inflorescence length 50 to 250 mm, inflorescence width 14 to 360 mm, length of longest finger 12 to 250 mm and width of longest finger 2 to 35 mm, and number of fingers per ear 4 to 23. Among the eastern African finger millet germplasm accessions, green plant types are dominant over pigmented with dominance of erect growth habit. Majority of lodging resistant accessions are from Uganda. When we considered overall plant aspect score, more than half of the accessions were of average type. The eastern African finger millet germplasm consists of all six races, ie, Africana and Spontanea (wild races) and four cultivated races namely Elongata, Plana, Compacta and Vulgaris with the dominance of race Vulgaris. Principal component analysis revealed that basal tillers per plant, flag leaf sheath length, inflorescence length and width, length and width of longest finger and panicles per plant are the important traits, which contribute considerable diversity. Accessions from all five countries were grouped into three clusters; accessions from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in one cluster as these had similar means for 8 traits; accessions from Ethiopia delineated from those of other countries based on higher means for 6 traits and higher variance for 7 traits; and accessions from Burundi separated from those of other countries based on higher means for 3 traits and higher variance for 7 traits.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Subjects:	Mandate crops > Millets
Depositing User:	Users 6 not found.
Date Deposited:	15 Oct 2011 05:17
Last Modified:	15 Oct 2011 05:17
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/2557
Official URL:	http://ejournal.icrisat.org/Volume7/Sorghum_Millet...
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	UNSPECIFIED
Links:	Author

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