RAJKUMAR PATEL, R. A. GAMI, K. G. KUGASHIYA, MANSHI J. PARMAR, H. N. ZALA, N. N. PRAJAPATI, R. N. PATEL AND D. R. CHAUDHARY
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, C. P. College of Agriculture, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Gujarat, India
Centre for Millets Research, S. D. Agricultural University, Deesa, Gujarat, India.
Centre for Crop Improvement, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Gujarat, India
Department of Seed technology, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Gujarat, India
Agricultural Research Station, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Ladol, India
*(e-mail : ramangami@sdau.edu.in)
(Received: 01 June 2026; Accepted: 20 June 2026)
SUMMARY
An experimental material consists of twenty-one pearl millet F1 hybrids developed through a Line × Tester design (3 lines × 7 testers) at SDAU, Deesa, during summer 2024 and evaluated at the Centre for Millets Research, SDAU, Deesa; Centre for Crop Improvement, SDAU, Sardarkrushinagar; SDAU, Ladol and Regional Research Station, SDAU, Kothara in a Randomized Block Design with three replications. The study involved the evaluation of nine traits, viz., days to flowering, plant height, number of productive tillers per plant, earhead length, earhead girth, days to maturity, 1000 grains weight, grain yield per plant and dry fodder yield per plant. A multivariate analysis was carried out to indentify diverse genotype for breeding purpose. Mahalanobis D2 analysis revealed substantial genetic diversity among the 21 pearl millet hybrids. Dry fodder yield per plant and earhead length contributed the most to genetic divergence, followed by grain yield per plant and 1000-grain weight. Cluster analysis grouped the hybrids into nine distinct clusters, with the highest inter-cluster distance observed between Clusters IV and VII, indicating that hybrids from these clusters could be used as promising parents for hybridization to obtain superior recombinants. Principal component analysis showed that the first three principal components explained 73.11% of the total variation. The variation was mainly associated with earhead length, earhead girth, grain yield per plant, dry fodder yield per plant, plant height, days to flowering, days to maturity and number of productive tillers per plant. Overall, Mahalanobis D2 analysis, cluster analysis and principal component analysis effectively revealed the extent of genetic diversity and identified promising hybrids for future pearl millet breeding programmes.
Key words: Pearl millet, multivariate analysis, Mahalanobis’ D2, cluster analysis and Principal Component Analysis