GENETIC VARIATION AMONG FORAGE PEARL MILLET GENOTYPES FOR FODDER YIELD AND ITS COMPONENT TRAITS UNDER RAINFED CONDITIONS OF GUJARAT

Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. ], the world‘s hardiest warm season cereal crop (Dapke et al., 2014). It is an indispensable source of fodder in many regions of the world. Being a C4 species, it has tremendous potential for biomass production, most of which is accumulated in its vegetative parts. Shashikala et al. (2013) mentioned that the green fodder of pearl millet is leafy, palatable and very nutritious feed stock for cattle ensuring good milk yield. Being any time forage, pearl millet, unlike sorghum, can be grazed, or cut and fed at any growth stage, as it has no HCN content. Pearl millet is excellent for producing silage, particularly in regions with dry spells during the rainy season. The production potential of green fodder of pearl millet at present is however, low. Obviously if productivity of the animal population has to be improved, high fodder yielding varieties of pearl millet need to be developed. Genetic studies provide basic information regarding the genetic properties of the population based on which breeding methods are formulated for further improvement of the crop. These studies are also helpful to know about the nature and extent of variability that can be attributed to different cause’s sensitive nature of the crop to environmental influences heritability of the characters and genetic advance that can be realized in practical breeding. Progress in any crop improvement venture depends mainly on the magnitude of genetic variability and heritability present in the source material. The extent of variability is measured by GCV and PCV which provides information about relative amount of variation in different characters. Hence, to have a thorough comprehensive idea it is necessary to have an analytical assessment of yield components. Since heritability is also influenced by environment, the information on heritability alone may not help in pin pointing characters enforcing selection. Nevertheless the heritability estimates in conjunction with the predicted genetic advance will be more reliable (Johnson et al., 1955). Heritability gives the information on the magnitude of inheritance of quantitative traits while genetic advance will be helpful in formulating suitable selection procedures. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance values were reported in pearl millet by Vidyadhar et al. (2007) for days to flowering and days to maturity; Lakshmana et al. (2009) for plant height, productive tillers per plant and grain yield per plant; Singh et al. (2013) for Number of tillers per plant and fodder yield per plant in sorghum and Singh et al. (2014) for plant height, biological yield per plant, dry fodder yield per plant and grain yield per plant in pearl millet suggesting selection for these traits would give good responses. Knowledge of the presence of association among the supplementary characters assumes a unique prominence as the basis for selecting desirable genotypes with high fodder yield potential. Bhagirath Ram et al. (2007) reported that green fodder yield per plot showed high positive correlation with tillers per plant, dry fodder yield per plant, green fodder yield per plant, stem diameter and plant height. Singh et al. (2014) mentioned that grain yield per plant had significant positive correlation with plant height, biological yield per plant, dry fodder yield per plant and harvest index. Therefore, the