Identification of promising finger millet landraces for the mid-hills of Nepal

Abstract

Finger millet is the fourth important food crop of Nepal. National Agriculture Genetic Resources Center (NAGRC) holds 1055 accessions of finger millet in its ex-situ depository. These accessions are poorly exploited in breeding programs due to a lack of ample characterization data. A total of 19 landraces were evaluated with Kabre kodo-2 (check) in three replications at Khumaltar, Lalitpur during 2020 and 2021 as pre-breeding experiments. Analysis of variances for agro-morphological traits revealed elite landraces having higher grain and straw yield, earlier maturity, optimum plant height, and blast resistance. NGRC04849 from Rukum produced the highest grain yield (3580 kg/ha) followed by NGRC01497 from Jajarkot (3567 kg/ha), NGRC05050 i.e. Kabre kodo-2 (3434 kg/ha) and NGRC06490 from Sindhuli (3368 kg/ha) consisting a separate cluster in a dendrogram. NGRC01483 from Okhaldhunga was the earliest (131 days) in maturity followed by NGRC04849 from Rukum (147 days) whereas Kabre kodo-2 matured in 156 days. NGRC03484 (Dhading) and NGRC04769 (Ilam) were found resistant for all three blast diseases (leaf, neck and finger blast) whereas NGRC01639 (Syangja), NGRC04804 (Dolakha) and NGRC04852 (Sindhupalchok) were found resistant for neck and finger blast. We found strong positive correlations between grain and straw yield (r=0.71), heading and maturity days (r=0.59), and neck and finger blast (r=0.59). Strong negative correlation of days to maturity with neck (r=-0.44) and finger blast (r=-0.42) suggests blast resistance in early maturing landraces. These elite landraces could be either utilized in finger millet improvement program or deployed to farmers' field analogous to Khumaltar condition.