Vol. 10, Issue 6 (2021)

Author(s):
Kesoju Ravali, JE Jahagirdar, RR Dhutmal, MP Wankhade and SV Kalyankar

Abstract:
In this study thirty seven genotypes of rabi sorghum with three checks namely M 35-1, Phule Suchitra and CSV-22-R were evaluated for drought tolerance at Sorghum Research Station, V.N.M.K.V., Parbhani during rabi 2019. This study was carried out based on various yield contributing traits viz., days to 50% flowering, plant height (cm), panicle length(cm), panicle width(cm), days to physiological maturity, 100-seed weight (g), fodder yield per plant (g), grain yield per plant (g), total biomass (g/plant) and harvest index (%). In this study analysis was subjected to mean performance, genetic variability and character association. Further these forty genotypes are subjected to diversity analysis using D2 statistics and further inter cluster distances and cluster means also studied. This analysis grouped the thirty seven genotypes and three checks into 11 clusters. These clusters represented presence of considerable amount of genetic diversity. Further, principle component analysis (PCA) revealed five components namely plant height, fodder yield per plant, days to physiological maturity, days to 50% flowering and harvest index contributed each by 64.87%, 22.18%, 5.90%, 3.46% and 3.33% respectively when compared to total variation based on various yield contributing traits. Among the forty genotypes studied VJV 107, VJV 106, PEC 30, RSV 1921, RSV 1945 and RSV 1984 under the clusters I, II and III considered as superior genotypes with high mean performance for all the ten traits studied. These genotypes can be advanced to next generation for crop improvement studies in relation to drought tolerance.