Abstract

Barnyard millet is hardy crop being cultivated in varied environments for food and fodder. Eighteen breeding lines were evaluated in three diverse environments of Tamil Nadu namely Coimbatore, Madurai and Chettinad. Among the three locations, Coimbatore and Chettinad turned out to be high and low yielding environment respectively. The variance analysis inferred that the performance of barnyard millet lines was influenced by the growing environment. The entries TNAU 130 and TNAU 146 performed well in favourable environment for grain yield. High grain yield was observed in the genotypes of VL 222, VL 232, VL 221, VL 224 and VL 230 at Coimbatore location. On the contrary, the stability parameters indicated that these entries were not consistent in yield performance. The variety CO(kv) 2 performed well in unfavourable condition with mean yield of 16.44 q ha -1 . The present study revealed that early maturing genotypes were poor yielders and vice versa. Based on the results it is suggested that, focused breeding efforts are required to identify high yielding stable barnyard millet genotypes.

Keywords: Barnyard Millet, Stability, Genotype x Environment.