Phenotypic diversity and stability of early maturing Barnyard Millet (Echinochloa sp.) germplasm for grain yield and its contributing traits

Abstract

Barnyard millet is one of the oldest domesticated millets in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. Developing early maturing cultivars is one of the important breeding goals in barnyard millet, which can fit well when main crops fail, or during the late onset of monsoon. Thus, this study was carried out to test the phenotypic diversity, character association and path coefficients, and stability of early maturing barnyard millet accessions. The MDU 1, a slightly late-maturing (95 days) cultivar, was used to identify early maturing accessions than the control with a considerably higher yield. Diversity as revealed by D2 analysis indicated that the trait grain yield had contributed the most towards the diversity followed by the traits such as thousand-grain weight and fodder yield per plant. The accessions IEc 350 and IEc 356 showed the highest fodder yield and grain yield per plant, and higher per day productivity than the control, MDU 1. Genotypic correlations revealed a significantly positive correlation of the grain yield with most traits investigated including days to maturity and fodder yield, and the trait fodder yield per plant showed a highly positive indirect effect on grain yield. Hence, these traits could be considered during the selection process for improving grain yield. Stability analysis identified two accessions, IEc 350 and IEc 356, and the MDU 1, as the stable high-yielding accessions. Hence, these high-yielding stable accessions can efficiently be used in barnyard millet improvement for developing early maturing varieties.