Assessment of Genetic Diversity Using Morphometric Traits in Littlemillet (Panicum sumatrense)
Littlemillet is widely grown in marginal areas and predominantly as rainfed crop with poor management by resource poor farmers. The crop is strongly associated with tribal agriculture. Sparse and irregular cultivation of littlemillet has led to less understanding of genetic diversity. Therefore, genetic divergence among 30 littlemillet genotypes was evaluated based on 12 morphometric traits. The research work was performed during summer, 2013 (Jan-May) in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Substantial variability among 30 genotypes was evident from the estimates of mean sum of square. Thirty littlemillet genotypes formed 20 distinct clusters with high inter cluster distances. Cluster mean confirmed the results of divergence analysis. Genotypes in cluster XX had the highest mean value for all the desirable traits. Single plant grain yield contributed the most to genetic diversity. The intra cluster distance was the highest in cluster X (17.6). The highest inter cluster distance was noticed between clusters V and XX (210.5). The genotypes identified to be highly diverse in the present study could be exploited in future breeding programs of little millet.