Agro-morphological characterization and digitization of job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) germplasm: A minor cereal crop of northeastern India Laxmisha KM1, Bhatt Kailash C.1,*, Arya Mamta2, Bhardwaj Rakesh1, Semwal Dinesh P.1, Gupta Veena1 1ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Pusa Campus, New Delhi, India 2ICAR-NBPGR, Regional Station, Bhowali, Uttarakhand, India *Author For Correspondence: kailash.bhatt@icar.gov.in
Online Published on 21 February, 2024. Abstract Thirty-seven Job’s tears accessions of India’s northeastern hill region (NEH) were characterized for nine quantitative and eight qualitative traits. Prominent furrow and elliptic shape of grain in soft-shelled types are supposed to be the most important trait that indicates the domestication trend of the crop in NEH region. Principal component analysis showed that agro-morphological traits, namely time for first heading, days to 80% maturity, seed yield/plant (g), number of culms, and length of culm (cm) have significantly contributed to the diversity. Correlation analysis has shown significant correlations between different yield-contributing traits. Diversity and potential traits in each cluster were also identified through cluster analysis. Grid mapping was done to identify the areas for collection of trait-specific germplasm like higher number of culms, length of culm and hundred seed weight. The germplasm accessions IC0332644, IC0416831 and IC0540173 were identified as promising genotypes. Top Keywords Diversity analysis, Digitization, Job’s tears, Northeastern India. Top |