Variability among germplasm collections for high biomass traits in Cenchrus sp.

• Main Author: Kalamani.A, Ameena Premnath and G. Vijayakumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Indian Society of Plant Breeders 2011-06-01
• Series: Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding
• Subjects: Cenchrus; germplasm; prostrate; biomass
• Online Access: http://sites.google.com/site/ejpb2011/vol-2-2/Vol-2-2-270-274.pdf?attredirects=0

Sixty germplasm accessions of Cenchrus ciliaris and Cenchrus setigerus were collected from different habitats in and aroundCoimbatore and Erode districts and planted in field trials. Based on initial morphological evaluation, four accessions fromCenchrus setigerus and three accessions from Cenchrus ciliaris showed better biomass. Among the collected germplasmaccessions, one among the Cenchrus setigerus accessions showed prostrate behaviour which would be of great use in thegreening of degraded lands where with few plants entire area can be covered and utilized for grazing. With its high soil bindingcapacity due to its clustered root system, it will reduce soil erosion also. The germplasm accessions from Sulur and Kangeyamrecorded high single plant green fodder yield of 545g and 500 g respectively in single cut compared to the control CO1 (262.5g).Further evaluation is in progress. Variations among the accessions collected from different habitats will be useful to evolve bettergenotypes than CO-1.