ESTIMATION OF GENETIC VARIABILITY AND DIVERGENCE IN SOME SELECTED LINES OF PEARL MILLET

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate the genetic variability , heritability , genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variations , genetic advance , range , genotypic and phenotypic variances and to study the genetic divergence by using multivariate analysis for yield and yield components in forty selected lines of pearl millet during 2012 and 2013 summer seasons at Sakha Agriculture Research Station . Analysis of variance manifested highly significant differences among all selected lines for all the studied traits. The phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV). Heritability in broad sense ranged from 11.12%for fresh leaf/ stem ratio to 86.87% for stem diameter. High estimates of bread sense heritability were found in all the studied traits, except dry matter and fresh leaf/stem ratio which, were medium and low, respectably. The environmental variance ranged from 13.13% for stem diameter to 88.88% for fresh leaf / stem ratio. The results also cleared that the genetic advance ranged from 0.91% for fresh leaf / stem ratio to 24.72% for total fresh forage yield. The results cleared that the ascendant order of the importance of evaluated traits were, the first factor accounted 41.78% (number of tillers, plant height, total dry forage yield and total fresh forage yield) while, the second factor accounted 59.62% (dry matter, stem diameter and fresh leaf /stem ratio) of the multivariate variance. The forty selected lines were grouped into eight clusters based on dissimilarity coefficients. Thus, the pearl millet breeder would use these selected lines from divergent cluster for hybridization in order to isolate useful recombinants in the segregating generations.