Abstract

: In breeding for increasing the yield in finger millet, the breeder is faced with the problem of arriving at a suitable index to be employed in the selection following the hybridisation. Advances in genetics, plant breeding and biometry have shown that formulation of a selection index utilising Fisher's (1936) concept of discriminant function is an important measure for efficient selection of breeding material. This function shows the extent to which each of the other characters is genetically related to yield; and in addition, if such samples are soored by means of this function the sum total of the linear function gives a value highly correlated with its genotypio yield potentialities. The investigations, reported herein, were undertaken with a view to finding out the range of phenotypic and genotypic variation for six characters in ragi and finally to arrive at a discriminant function.

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