Abstract:
Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) is a highly nutritious and important food crop widely cultivated
in the arid and semiarid regions in the world. Therefore it is worthy to be subjected to crop improvement
programs. Germplasm collection and characterization are preliminary and important steps in crop
improvement programmes. This study was conducted to characterize randomly selected 24 finger millet
germplasm accessions conserved at the plant Genetic Resource Centre, Gannoruwa, Sri Lanka using 14
quantitative characters. The maximum positive and significant coefficient of variation was observed between
weight of grain per ear and weight of sun dried ear. Phenotypic correlation between weight of grain per ear
was highly significant and positively associated with days to flowering, flag leaf width, flag leaf length, plant
height, culm thickness, finger length, finger width, days to maturity and weight of sun dried ears, flag leaf
width, flag leaf length, plant height, culm thickness, finger length, finger width, days to maturity and weight of
sun dried ears. The principal component analysis revealed that the first five component with Eigen values
greater than 0.87 contributed about 85.5% of total variability. The twenty for finger millet accessions grouped
in to four main clusters in the cluster analysis. Results of cluster analysis could be used in the crop breeding
and conservation programmes
