STUDIES ON GENETIC VARIABILITY AND TRAIT ASSOCIATION FOR GRAIN YIELD AND ITS COMPONENTS IN PEARL MILLET [PENNISETUM GLAUCUM (L.) R. BR.]
SATBEER SINGH*, Y. P. YADAV, H. P. YADAV1, DEV VART AND NIKETA YADAV
Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding
CCS Haryana Agricultural University,
Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : satbeeryadav87@gmail.com)
(Received : 3 August 2014; Accepted : 19 August 2014)
SUMMARY
The present study was undertaken to determine genetic variability present in relation to grain yield and its components with the objective to study their association contributing to grain yield in pearl millet. A set of 24 pearl millet genotypes (7 hybrids and 17 parental lines) was evaluated in randomized block design (RBD) with three replications at Hisar under irrigated conditions during kharif 2011 season. Observations were recorded on 12 yield and yield contributing traits. Considerable amount of variation was found in material under study. Wide range, high coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean were recorded for grain yield/plant, dry fodder weight/plant, fresh fodder weight/plant, productive tillers/plant, plant height and number of nodes/plant. Grain yield was found positively and highly significantly correlated with all the traits under study. Path analysis revealed that productive tillers/plant had highest positive direct effect followed by plant height, spike length and nodes/plant. These desirable correlations showed that productive tillers/plant, plant height, spike length,nodes/plant and fresh fodder weight were the major yield components in pearl millet and therefore can be used as selection criteria for yield improvement of pearl millet.
Key words: Variability, heritability, genetic advance, association, yield components, pearl millet