Morphological Characterization and Evaluation of Little millet (Panicum sumatrense Roth. ex. Roem. and Schultz.) Germplasm

Evaluation of hundred and nine little millet germplasm accessions was done during rabi, 2008-2009 at Department of Millets, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore to study descriptive statistics, genetic variability, correlation and path analysis of yield and its components. High estimates of variability together with high heritability and high genetic advance were observed for grain yield, number of productive tillers per plant, total number of tillers per plant, flag leaf width and flag leaf sheath length indicated additive gene effects for these characters. Phenotypic selection based on these characters may be effective for yield improvement. Highly significant positive correlations of most of the component characters with grain yield and strong inter correlation among themselves indicated possibility of simultaneous improvement of these characters by selection. High positive direct effect and indirect effects of other characters through days to 50 per cent flowering indicated this character should be given importance in selection.