Varibility Studies in Foxtail Millet [Setariaitalica (L.) P. Beauv]: Genetic Advances and Heritability Approaches

The filed experiment was conducted in 300 genotypes of foxtail millet. The experiment was laid out in Augmented Design and held at Regional Agriculture Research Station (RARS), ANGRAU ,Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh, during kharif -2021. Coefficients of variation studies indicated that the estimates of PCV were slightly higher than the corresponding GCV estimates for all the characters, indicating that the characters were less influenced by the environment. In the present investigation, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for observed in plant height, panicle length, flag leaf length and grain yield. Hence these traits shows attributed to the predominance of additive gene action, which suggests that simple selection effectively increases this feature. Moderate heritability with moderate genetic advance are observed in peduncle length, panicle weight and also in test weight.