Estimates of Variability, Heritability and Genetic Advance in Foxtail Millet

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv) known globally as Italian millet, Italian foxtail, German millet, Siberian millet, Foxtail bristle grass is having highest production among all small millets making its sixth most important grown grain.In India it is well known as Kangni (Hindi), Kang (Gujarati), Navane (Kannada), Kaon dana (Bengali), Kavalai, and Tenai (Tamil) and is important crop next to finger millet among the small millets.At present, foxtail millet is cultivated in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and north eastern states of India.Millets are far superior than other cereal crops like rice and wheat nutritionally (Shingane et al., 2016).Protein content in foxtail millet grains ranges from 11.13 to 18.75%, being greater than rice (7%-9%), wheat (11%-14%), and maize (8%-11%) (Hou et al., 2022).Having a comparable nutritional profile to common millet, 4 percent oil, with 7% crude fibre.Mature grain is good source of digestible protein than rice and wheat and also contains beta-carotene, antioxidants, vitamins, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc.Contains more vitamins and is source of seven of the eight necessary amino acids that the human body cannot generate (Zhang et al., 2007), grains are also very good source of thiamine, riboflavin and niacin.Foxtail millet is mainly cultivated in the semi-arid regions of the country concentrating in middle to south Indian parts.It is not grown in western hot arid region, hence to assess the adaptability of the crop 36 genotypes of foxtail millet were evaluated in Jodhpur conditions.The experiment was carried out at instructional farm, College of Agriculture, Jodhpur.Geographically, it is located between 26 o 15' N to 26 o 45' North latitude and 73 o 00' E to latitude 73 o 29' East longitude at an altitude of 231 meter above mean sea level.This region falls under agro-climatic zone Ia (Arid Western Plains Zone) of Rajasthan.Genetic variation was assessed by observing five competitive plants selected at random from each genotype grown in randomized block design.The observation recorded were days to 50% flowering, number of productive tillers per plant, plant height, days to maturity, flag leaf length, flag leaf width, ear length, ear width, straw weight, 1000 grain weight, grain protein, harvest index, chlorophyll content and grain yield per plant.The genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation (GCV and PCV) were computed as suggested by Burton, 1953, broad sense heritability (Lush, 1949) and genetic advance (Johnson et al., 1955) were also computed.