Genetic analysis of economic traits in finger millet

Continuous crop genetic improvement to mitigatedynamic production constraints driven by changingproduction environments, and to cater to ever changingpreferences and requirements of the farmers and the endusersis necessary for adoption of a well conceivedstrategy that hinges on the sound knowledge on the natureof genetic control of economic traits (among others) inthe working germplasm. Based on this premise, aninvestigation was carried out in the experimental fields ofUniversity of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), GKVKCampus, Bangalore, India during 1998–99 to estimatecomponents of genotypic variability through analysis ofhalf-sib and full-sib progeny family variances. Theresults revealed involvement of both additive anddominance genetic variation with a preponderance of thelatter in the expression of time to 50% flower, plantheight and dry fodder weight plant-1 while onlydominance genetic variation was operative in theexpression of number of tillers plant-1, number of fingersear-1 and grain weight plant-1. These results are discussedin relation to the adoption of suitable breeding andselection strategy for genetic enhancement of economictraits in finger millet.