KAVITA*, DEV VART, RAMESH KUMAR, L. K. CHUGH AND VINAY KUMAR
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail: kavitadhaka127@gmail.com)
(Received : 16 September 2023; Accepted : 8 December 2023)
SUMMARY
The present study was carried out to assess genetic diversity for grain nutritional and agro- morphological traits among fifty genotypes (designated B and R-lines) of pearl millet. Significant genetic variation was identified for all the studied traits. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce large correlated data into three major principal components that report for maximum 65.04% of the variation. Among these PC1 contributes to the greatest variation (30%) followed by PC2 (19.95%.) and PC3 (15.08%). Maximum positive component loading towards PC1 was contributed by grain yield per plant (0.89), dry fodder yield per plant (0.85), number of productive tillers per plant (0.52) and towards PC2 was contributed by grain Ca content (0.84) and Mg (0.81) content. The biplot analysis revealed four groups with group IV having HR-108, HRI-1499, HR-1038, HR-1032 and GP-58 genotypes positively associated with grain Ca and Mg content and group I possessing GP-69, GP- 80, GP-70, HMC-283 and HMC-94-2 genotypes positively associated to grain yield
Key words: Biplot, minerals, pearl millet, principle component analysis, variability