Genetic Analysis of Grain Yield and its Components in Pearl Millet

The genetic analysis was carried out to determine mode of inheritance of yield and its contributing trait under two environments in irrigated and rainfed conditions. The study was undertaken with the help of six generations P1, P2, F1, F2, B1, and B2 in three crosses, viz, 863B x P 7-7 (1), 843B x P 7-4 (2), and 81B x ICMP 451 (3) of pearl millet in two environments Varanasi (Irrigated) (E1) and Mirzapur (Rainfed) (E2) using six generations. Simple additive-dominance model failed to explain the genetic variation of most of the characters. The estimates for mean and dominance were reduced in Rainfed environment of Mirzapur, though all type of digenic interactions were prevalent, the dominance x dominance gene effects with duplicate epistasis were pronounced. It is suggested that cyclic breeding particularly reciprocal recurrent selections should be practised to improve yield and its attribute traits in Pearl millet rather than going only for simple selections methods.