Abstract

Grain amaranth (Amaranthus hypochondriacus L.) is a winter crop in India. Productivity improvement through exploitation of variability in 99 accessions was carried out at Birsa Agricultural University, Jharkhand (23o17' N latitude and 85o19' E longitude, 625m altitude) in augmented incomplete block design with three checks (BGA 2, GA 2 and Suvarna) during Rabi 2012-2013 and 2013-14. The data on 11 quantitative and 9 qualitative characters were recorded. A wide range of variability was observed for all the morphological characters. High variability was observed with respect to seed yield (kg/ha), g/10ml seed weight, days to 80% maturity, inflorescence length (cm), plant height (cm), number of branches/plant, days to 50% flowering, petiole length (cm), leaf width (cm), leaf length (cm) and seed yield/plant. The accession viz.,IC94661, SKGPA-106, IC35713 and IC35735 for more than 28 g seed yield/plant; SKGPA-79, SKGPA- 101, SKGPA-69, IC-35665, IC-35642 and SKGPA-100 for days to maturity and IC-35642, IC-21803-A, IC-120670 and IC-95244 for g/10ml seed weight with superior desirable traits can be utilized in different breeding programmes.

Keywords: Grain amaranth, Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Germplasm, Characterization.