Genetic Diversity in Finger Millet (Eleusine Coracana L.)

Abstract

The experimental material comprised 140 diverse genotypes of finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn.). The data on 10 quantitative traits viz. days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of tillers/plant, productive tillers/plant, number of fingers/ear, total fingers/plant, biological yield, grain yield and harvest index were collected from a random sample of 10 plants for each genotype. On the basis of non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis, all the 140 genotypes of the present study were grouped into ten non-overlapping clusters. Maximum no. of genotypes (31) were included in cluster I followed by 28 genotypes in cluster V, 19 genotypes in cluster III, 14 genotypes each in clusters II and VIII, 11 genotypes in cluster VII, 10 genotypes in cluster IV, 7 genotypes in cluster VI, 5 genotypes in cluster IX, while there was only one genotype in cluster X. The inter-cluster distance varied from 16.85 between clusters X and I to 1.94 between clusters III and VIII. Genetic diversity was observed to be independent of the geographical origin of the genotypes.