RA 00110.pdf - OAR@ICRISAT

farmers in this region store 500-600 kg of the grain. More than half of these farmers store the grain in gunny
bags. About 25% store it either in a "gade" (basket of woven bamboo strips), or in clay pots. Sun drying is the
only pest control method used prior to storage. Grain stored in gunny bags was 66% insect damaged, while the
grain stored in gades was only 47% damaged. Insect infestation levels as well as percentage of weight lost
during storage was lower in pearl millet compared to sorghum. The weight loss after 9 months of storage was
only 1% compared to over 2% in sorghum. Chemical analysis of nutrients indicated similar or somewhat
higher losses of protein in pearl millet after storage (11% in pearl millet, 10.5% in sorghum), thiamine (39.4% in
pearl millet, 25.1% in sorghum), and niacin (16.7% in pearl millet and 13% in sorghum). The loss was
attributed to the higher concentration of these nutrients in the seed coat of pearl millet grain.
Quantitative Genetics and Analysis of Multilocational Trials
Studies on Adaptability and Gene Effects and their
Implications in Pearl Millet Breeding
(Etudes sur l'adaptabilite et les effets geniques—leur importance dans la selection du m i l )
R.L. Kapoor and Prem Sagar
Millet Breeders, Department of Plant Breeding, Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana 125 004,
India
The analysis of genotype-environment interaction in a number of studies conducted at H A U , carried out using
Eberhart and Russell (1966) adaptability parameters, revealed that both the linear regressions and deviations
from them played an important role. The major portion of those interactions were accounted for by the linear
regressions for most of the characters. However, for such characters as head length for which only the
deviations from the regressions were found to be significant, predictions across environments for most of the
genotypes could still be made as a large number of them either showed no genotype-environment interaction
or had only the linear regression significant.
An inspection of behavior of the stability parameters (b and s 2 d) of the parents and their arrays in a diallel
analysis and the association between those parameters indicated that both the predictable and the unpredictable
components of interaction were under the control of distinct genetic systems. There appeared to be no
correlation between mean performance and responsiveness (b), in respect of grain yield and its components,
in the parental material; conversely downy mildew showed association.
In one of the studies, nine environments, varying for the extent of artificially created drought stress, were
grouped (stratified) into seven sets on the basis of environment or location. A correlation matrix between the
performance of genotypes in the sets was determined. The mean performance of the genotypes for grain and
dry fodder yield was positively correlated in all cases, but b value was correlated in 62% and S 2 d value in 45% of
the cases. The proportion of genotypes showing instability was substantially lower when the test environments
sampled included only the drought stress conditions as compared to nonstress and a range of stress and
nonstress conditions. Thus, the stratification of environments for identification of suitable genotypes is
helpful.
The genetics of quantitative characters was studied using diallel and line x tester analyses. Both additive
and nonadditive gene effects were found to be important, in the expression of almost all the characters, in
almost all environments. Both these components of genetic variation interacted with the environments for
almost all the characters except seed size (500 grain mass). Breeding implications have been discussed.
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