Abstract
Twenty four parental lines of pearl millet A/B pairs developed jointly by Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), Maiduguri and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Kano during 1997 to 1999 were evaluated along with a seed parent (ZATIB) across five locations to determine yield and yield component relationships, heritability estimates as well as genetic advance. Correlation coefficient analysis showed that stand count (r=0.249), plant height (r=0.435) and head weight (r=0.958) significantly (p<0.05) and positively correlated with grain yield while days to 50% flowering significantly but negatively correlated (r=-0.539) with grain yield. There were negative but none significant correlation between grain yield with downy mildew score (r=-0.100) and Striga count (r=-0.095) while downy mildew score and Striga count negatively correlated with stand count (r=-0.155 and r=-0.065 respectively). Head weight has high positive and significant environmental, genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficient with grain yield (re=0.920; rg=0.900 and rp=0.980). Positive and significant genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficient exists between plant height and grain yield (rg=0.593 and rp=0.417). Path coefficient analysis indicated that stand count had strong positive direct effect (0.970) on grain yield followed by plant height (0.953). Head weight expressed high negative direct effect (-0.846) on grain yield. The parental lines under study showed high to moderate broad-sense heritability; with panicle length expressing the highest heritability (78.95%), followed by grain yield (75.43%) and head weight (73.30%). The rest characters expressed moderate heritability values. Panicle length and head weight displayed high heritability and high genetic advance indicating that the two traits might be controlled by additive gene effects. This suggests that selection in the segregating generation may be effective. Phenotypic correlation approximates genotypic correlation coefficient in this study, indicating that the influence of environment may be probably minimal and traits with high predictive values can be selected early in the breeding program as against traits with low predictive values. Key words: Pearl millet, correlation, path analysis, heritability, genetic advance.
Highlights
Pearl millet is an important staple food security crop in Nigeria grown in 5.2 million hectares with a production of4.62 million tones grain per year
Low productivity of pearl millet across all the millet growing belts in Nigeria is due to the cultivation of open pollinated varieties (OPVs) by farmers coupled with adverse biotic and abiotic stresses
The purpose of this study was to gain sufficient knowledge of the interrelationship, path coefficient between yield and its components, heritability and genetic advance among pearl millet parental lines to determine criteria for selection that could be effectively used to identify the desirable lines with potential for high yield in single cross hybrid development program
Summary
Pearl millet is an important staple food security crop in Nigeria grown in 5.2 million hectares with a production of. Crop Sci. 26% of total cereals production in Nigeria (Ndjeunga et al, 2010). It has been observed that single hybrid generally gives 20 to 30% more grain yield than OPVs (Rai et al, 2006). With the increasing population and rapid deployment of pearl millet into feed and instant value added products, significant increase in per hectare yield of the crop is required to meet the ever increasing demand, which can be made possible with the use of hybrids. Based on the availability of a commercially exploitable cytoplasmic-nuclear malesterility system LCRI, Maiduguri along with ICRISAT embarked on pioneer research of developing commercial pearl millet hybrids using indigenous germplasm and converted breeding lines (Ezeaku and Angarawai, 2005)
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