Evaluation of finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.] accessions using agro-morphological characters

The study was conducted at village level in-situ center, Jawhar block of Palghar district of Maharashtra during the year 2017 and 2018 to characterize 20 accessions of finger millet. Data was collected on morphology, plant growth and yield contributing characters. Traits like erect growth habit (80 percent); semi-compact ear (60 percent); partially enclosed seeds by glumes (60 percent) and light brown colour of seed (75 percent) was found dominant among studied accessions. The results indicated that studied landraces exhibited variability in finger number (6 to 14), finger length (7 to 16 cm) and maturity days (85 to 117). The results of study also showed that productive tiller number was most varied trait (29.37 percent), followed by ear head length (21.98 percent) and finger number (19.42 percent). Among the studied traits, finger width showed the lowest variation (7.65 percent). Analysis of variance showed that all the characters were highly significant among the accessions. This potential gene pool needs to be conserved and may be explored for crop improvement in future.