Assessment of Finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) genotypes for Drought Tolerance at early Seedling Growth Stages

Assessment of Finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) genotypes for Drought Tolerance at early Seedling Growth Stages

Twenty seven genotypes of Finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) were screened for early seedling traits such as germination percentage, root length, shoot length, seedling total length, seedling dry weight and Seed vigour index (SVI) for drought tolerance under laboratory conditions using PEG-6000. Seven different levels of osmotic stress were created and performance was monitored against control. Results indicated that genotypes have wide genetic variability for all traits studied. PEG -6000 was successfully used in screening the seedlings for moisture stress at seedling establishment stages. Almost all the seedling traits exhibited decreasing trend with increasing osmotic stress. No germination was noticed at 25% PEG induced stress level. All studied genotypes were grouped into three categories viz. highly tolerant, moderately tolerant and highly susceptible on the basis of drought tolerance index. On the basis of DT index genotype PE 400 and PRM 6112 were found to be the tolerant and the most susceptible genotypes respectively.