PERFORMANCE IN RELATION TO POLLINATION SYSTEMS IN PEARL MILLET

Abstract

^{The relative efficiencies of three pollination methods, namely, bulk
sibbing, random mating and self pollination in maintaining mean
performance of pearl millet populations have been investigated. These
pollination methods were applied to 16 varieties and synthetics and their
influence was observed on nine characters related to flowering, plant
height, head length and grain yield. The present study clearly
demonstrated the superiority ofrandom pollination, even in the absence of
perfect isolation distance, in both, the maintenance of the mean
performance of the varieties and relative ease in multiplication of several
pearl millet populations at the same location.}