Morphological and Agronomic Characters of Several Finger Millet Cultivars (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) Collected from Northern Part of Vietnam and Japan

Abstract

This study was conducted to describe morphological characters and evaluate agronomic characters of seven finger millet cultivars collected from mountainous regions in northern part of Vietnam and Japan. The botanical characteristics, growing duration and flowers were observed at different growth stages. The growth duration of the finger millet cultivars ranged from 127 to 151 days. The plant height of Vietnamese cultivars varied between 54.9 and 72.9cm, taller than Japanese cultivars. The number of panicles per hill of all millet cultivars was higher in spring season than autumn season. The average number of leaves per main stem was 15.0 and 17.0 leaves in autumn and spring season, respectively. The number of spikelets per panicle was in a range of 1028- 2126 in spring season and 804- 2679 in autumn season. Thousand grain weight was from 1.92g to 2.77g in spring season and from 1.93 to 2.72 in autumn season. Grain yield per plant was in a range of 5.6 - 23.3g in spring season and 1.8-13.5 in autumn season. Among finger millet cultivars investigated, cultivars  FM2, FM5 and FM6 showed greatest grain yield.