Assessment of genetic diversity in Indian Italian millet genetic resources [Setaria Italica (L.) Beauv]

Abstract

Fifty Italian millet genetic resources were studied to assess the magnitude of genetic diversity for 12 quantitative traits using Mahalanobis D2 Statistic.  Based on Tocher’s method, the entire genetic resources were partitioned into nine distinct nonoverlapping clusters suggesting availabilty of substantial genetic diversity. Cluster I was the largest comprising of large number of accessions (36) followed by cluster II with (7) accessions and the remaining were mono genotypic clusters III, IV, V,VI,VII, VIII and IX  containing only single accession each indicating high degree of heterogeneity among the genotypes. Clusters II and IX showed maximum inter-cluster distance between them implying these genetic resources with high degree of genetic diversity may be utilized in inter-varietal hybridization programme. The trait, culm branches followed by 1000 grain weight contributed maximum towards total divergence indicating feasibility of improvement through those characters.