Morphological variability for qualitative and quantitative traits in finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn)

Information on genetic variation is very important for finger millet breeding program. The objective of this study was to evaluate the extent of genetic variation in finger millet accessions. Eighty two accessions were evaluated in the dry season 2010/11 and the rainy season 2011 at Khon Kaen University, Thailand, and also evaluated in Botswana College of Agriculture in Botswana in rainy season in 2013. The results of combined analysis of variance for mean data of traits studied revealed highly significant variation for most of the traits studied. High variations were observed for yield per plant with a range of 15 g-144 g per plant while low variations were observed for fingers per panicle with a range of 5-11 fingers per panicle. Qualitative traits like seed colors showed high variation with six different colors observed during the study 2,2,4, 49, 8 and 17 accessions had white, light brown, brown, ragi brown, red and purple seed colors, respectively. A dendrogram constructed using the qualitative traits revealed high variation, separated the wild accessions (IE 4709) from the cultivated accessions, then grouped the cultivated accessions into 5 main groups at 86% similarity level. Genetic variation evaluation based on morphological characters has proved to be very informative and can also be manipulated into selecting superior accessions to be utilized as parents for a breeding program.