Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding
Pearl millet is valued for both grain and stover in croplivestock production system in the drought-prone arid and
semi-arid regions of north-western India. In this work the
performance of contemporary hybrids and composites of
pearl millet were compared for grain and stover yields in
drier zone of these regions. A total of 142 hybrids and 84
composites were evaluated in a combination of 94
environments from 1998 to 2009 in the stales of Rajasthan,
Gujarat and Haryana. Mean yield in test locations ranged
from 611 kg/ha to 2351 kg/ha for grain and from 18.7 q/ha
to 69.8 q/ha for stover. Hybrids yielded significantly higher
grain than composites with an overall superiority of 25%.
Earliness and ability to produce more panicles by hybrids
appeared to contribute toward their higher grain yield.
Hybrids had stover yield at par with composites. The data
indicated that contemporary hybrids are inherently higher
yielder than composites even under adverse conditions
of arid and drier semi-arid regions. The population
buffering mechanism of composites appeared not to give
any advantage with espect to yield. Implications of these
results are discussed in breeding pearl millet for drier zone
of north-western India.
Keywords: Pennisetum glaucum, pearl millet, arid, drought, hybrids, composites
Year: 2012
Volume: 72
Issue: 1
Article DOI: N/A
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906
O. P. Yadav*, B. S. Rajpurohit, G. R. Kherwa info_circle
A. Kumar info_circle
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