Author(s):

Jyoti Kaushik, Dev Vart, Mukesh Kumar, Mamta Nehra and Ramesh Kumar

Abstract: Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] Is a multipurpose cereal belonging to the family Poaceae and primarily grown for grain on more than 26 million ha in the arid and semi-arid tropical regions of Asia and Africa. The present investigation was carried out by taking 48 maintainer genotypes of pearl millet developed at CCSHAU, Hisar and of these, 29 belonged to A₁, 11 to A₄, six to A₃, two each to A₂ and DSA and one to A_egp sterile cytoplasm. The material was evaluated in a Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications in Kharif season of 2014 and D² values were calculated as suggested by Mahalanobis, 1936. On the basis of nine quantitative characters, the 48 maintainer lines were grouped into 7 clusters in such a way that lines within each cluster had smaller D² value than those between clusters. Cluster pattern revealed that cluster 2 and cluster 4 had highest number of genotypes (10 each) followed by cluster 1 and cluster 3 (9 each). Maximum intra-cluster difference among the maintainer lines within the same cluster was shown by cluster 7 (4.498). Clusters 1 and 7 showed maximum inter-cluster distance of (7.421) whereas the lowest inter-cluster distance was recorded between clusters 2 and 3 (3.742). The cluster means for the thirteen quantitative characters in pearl millet maintainer lines revealed considerable differences among all the clusters. For days to 50% flowering, highest mean value possessed by cluster 4 (49) and lowest mean value by cluster 1 (42). Spike length was the highest in cluster 7 (27.5) and lowest in cluster 1 (15.0). For spike girth, cluster 4 (2.39) divulged the highest mean value and cluster 6 (1.52) divulged the lowest mean value. Cluster 5 (3.52) also revealed the highest mean value for number of productive tillers/plant, whereas, cluster 1 had the lowest mean value (1.38).The crosses between the genotypes belonging to distantly located clusters are likely to produce good transgressive segregants and genotypes with higher mean values in a trait(s) can be used in crossing program to develop promising maintainer lines.

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