TRAIT ASSOCIATION IN DIVERSE PEARL MILLET [PENNISETUM
GLAUCUM (L.) R. BR.] POPULATIONS UNDER IRRIGATED AND
RAINFED CONDITIONS
R. KUMAR *, S. HARISH, V. MALIK, DEVVART, Y. KUMAR, KUSHAL RAJ AND M. S. DALAL
Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding
CCS Haryana Agricultural University,
Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : rameshkrgr@gmail.com)
(Received : 5 January 2015; Accepted : 15 February 2015)
SUMMARY
Trait association among 21 diverse pearl millet populations was studied and the experiment was
conducted in a randomized block design with three replications during kharif season of 2013 in two
locations/environments viz., Bajra Section, Research Area, Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar (E1) in irrigated and Regional Research Station, Bawal (E2) in rainfed conditions. The observations were recorded on each population for seven quantitative traits viz., days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height (cm), number of effective tillers per plant, panicle length (cm), panicle diameter (mm), dry fodder yield (q/ha) and grain yield (kg/ha). The mean performance and range in two environments for each character revealed that E1 (Hisar) i. e. irrigated condition was the best environment for the expression of almost all the characters except days to 50 per cent flowering, whereas E2 (Bawal) i. e. rainfed condition was found to be the best for days to 50 per cent flowering. The correlation study revealed that estimated genotypic correlations for most of the characters were greater than their corresponding phenotypic ones. Grain yield exhibited either positive (plant height and dry fodder yield) or negative (days to flowering) but significant association with all the traits in both the environments. Grain yield displayed significant but contrasting values of genotypic correlation with number of effective tillers (positive in E1 but negative in E2) and panicle diameter (negative in E1 but positive in E2). The results of path coefficient analysis revealed that plant height (0.558 and 24.379) exerted the highest positive direct effect on grain yield followed by panicle length (0.086 and 19.369) and panicle diameter (0.164 and 13.483) in both the environments. Days to 50 per cent flowering, effective tillers per plant and dry fodder yield exhibited the positive direct effect on grain yield in irrigated condition and negative direct effect on grain yield in rainfed condition. Whereas productive tillers per plant and dry fodder yield/plant were not reflecting any direct effect in rainfed condition. The study concludes that main emphasis should be given on days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height and dry fodder yield for grain yield improvement as they exhibited high correlation with grain yield in both the environments.
Key words:Correlation coefficients, path coefficients, pearl millet, grain yield