Genetic variability, correlation and principal component analyses in grain amaranth under water limited conditions of Bundelkhand region

Two hundred amaranth (Amaranthus sp.) germplasm accessions were evaluated for nine quantitative and ten qualitative traits with five checks under water limited conditions of Bundelkhand region during kharif, 2019. The accessions, IC35373, IC583610 and IC38039 showed early inflorescence emergence i.e. 28.0, 28.0 and 29.0 days, respectively. Out of 200 germplasm accessions, 64.88% showed green inflorescence colour followed by red and light yellow colours. High heritability estimates were observed for 1000 grain weight (81.94%), followed by grain yield per plant (67.04%) and leaf length (66.94%), whereas, leaf length, leaf width, lateral spikelet length and 1000 grain weight exhibited moderate range for genetic advance as per cent of mean. Grain yield per plant revealed positive and significant correlation with plant height (0.345**), followed by lateral spikelet length (0.220**), leaf length (0.199**) and 1000 grain weight (0.143*). In principal component analysis the first principal component (PC1) showed the highest contribution of 73.5% followed by PC2 (11.10%) and PC3 (9.30%), respectively. Petiole length, lateral spikelet length and inflorescence length were identified as contributors towards genetic variation in PCA analysis. The genotypes, EC146534, IC38193, IC289386, IC396963, IC540832 and IC415314 were found promising under water limited conditions of Bundelkhand region.