GENETIC DIVERGENCE AND CLUSTER ANALYSIS IN CLIMATE RESILIENT CROP FINGER MILLET [Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn.]

ABHINAV SAO¹*, PRAFULL KUMAR², PRAVEEN PANIGRAHI³, H.C. NANDA^4
1Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh, India
²Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh, India
³Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh, India
⁴Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh, India
* Corresponding Author : saoabhi27@yahoo.co.in

Received : 16-07-2018     Accepted : 25-07-2018     Published : 30-07-2018
Volume : 10     Issue : 14       Pages : 6665 - 6668
Int J Agr Sci 10.14 (2018):6665-6668

Keywords : Finger millet, Non-hierarchial Euclidean cluster analysis, divergence
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : Authors are highly thankful to All India Coordinated Research Project on Small millets, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New delhi, India for providing financial support and research materials and Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh for all resources for conduction of study.
Author Contribution : All author equally contributed

Thirty-three diverse genotypes of finger millet were studied for genetic diversity on the basis of eight quantitative characters using Euclidian distance between genotypes. On the basis of non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis, all the 33 genotypes of the present study were grouped into six non-overlapping clusters. Among the different clusters, cluster I contained maximum of 11 genotypes and cluster VI contained a minimum of 2 genotypes each. Cluster II was characterized by highest mean value for plant height and cluster III had highest mean value for number of productive tillers per plant, number of fingers per ear, grain yield and fodder yield. The cluster IV was characterized by highest mean value for main ear length and days to maturity. The cluster VI was characterized by highest mean value for days to 50% flowering. The highest inter cluster distance was observed between cluster IV and V while the lowest between I and III. The lowest intra cluster distance was observed in cluster III while highest intra cluster distance was observed in cluster II. Among the characters days to maturity followed by days to 50% flowering, grain yield and main ear length contributed maximum towards the total divergence and collectively contribute to more than 90% of the divergence. There is good scope to bring about genetic improvement in finger millet through hybridization and selection by crossing genotypes from different clusters.

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