Genetic analysis of economic traits in finger millet.

Abstract

Continuous crop genetic improvement to mitigate dynamic production constraints driven by changing production environments, and to cater to ever changing preferences and requirements of the farmers and the endusers is necessary for adoption of a well conceived strategy that hinges on the sound knowledge on the nature of genetic control of economic traits (among others) in the working germplasm. Based on this premise, an investigation was carried out in the experimental fields of University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), GKVK Campus, Bangalore, India during 1998–99 to estimate components of genotypic variability through analysis of half-sib and full-sib progeny family variances. The results revealed involvement of both additive and dominance genetic variation with a preponderance of the latter in the expression of time to 50% flower, plant height and dry fodder weight plant -1 while only dominance genetic variation was operative in the expression of number of tillers plant -1 , number of fingers ear -1 and grain weight plant -1 . These results are discussed in relation to the adoption of suitable breeding and selection strategy for genetic enhancement of economic traits in finger millet.