Finger millet Core Collection

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn), belongs to genus Eleusine in the tribe Eragrostideae family Poaceae (Gramineae), and subfamily Chloridoideae, self pollinating, with chromosome number 2n=36, ranks fourth in importance among millets in the world after sorghum, pearl millet, and foxtail millet. It is mainly grown as a cereal in semi-arid tropics (SAT) and sub tropics of the world under rain-fed conditions. It is a hardy crop that can be grown in very diverse environments from almost at sea level to about 2400 m.a.s.l. Finger millet has an excellent food value as its seeds contain protein ranging from 7 to 14% and are particularly rich in methionine amino acid, iron, and calcium. Despite all these merits, this crop has been neglected from the main stream of crop improvement research. One of the means to boost its production and productivity is to enhance utilization of finger millet germplasm to breed superior varieties. Keeping this objective in view, a core subset of 622 finger millet germplasm (Click here for details on Accesions) based on origin and data on 14 quantitative traits was developed from the entire global collection of 5940 accessions held in the genebank at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India. The comparison of means, variances, frequency distribution, Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H’) and phenotypic correlations indicated that the core subset represents the entire collection. These tests indicated that sampling was optimal and the diversity has been captured very well in core subset.