Phenotypic variability of Cenchrus ciliaris L. germplasm in field gene bank

Abstract

The genetic variability of seven C. ciliaris genotypes was analyzed for different quantitative and qualitative traits. Among quantitative traits, more variability was recorded for flowering characters, like days to spike initiation and days to 50% flowering with the range of 33.0-46.3 and 42.7-69.3 respectively. In some genotypes, seeds of earlier emerged spikes started maturing before the emergence of spikes in other plants resulted in narrowed difference between days to 50% flowering and days to start of seed maturity. Likewise, significant variation was observed for the robustness characters like, leaf length, leaf width, flag leaf length and flag leaf (Table 1). Similarly genotypes showed significant variation for Seeds per spike and the range recorded 60.3-120.2. Most of the productive characters like, no. of tillers per plant, fertile tillers per plant, green fodder yield and dry matter yield data were found non-significant. A high correlation (r > 0.7) was found between plant height and leaf width; plant height and seed weight/plant, days to spike initiation and days to 50% flowering.