Addressing the Challenge of Hybridization: An Empirical Strategy Using Partial Male Sterility and Virescence Lines in the Hybrid Breeding of Finger Millet ( <i>Eluesine coracana</i> )

ABSTRACT Finger millet, which is predominantly self‐pollinated with cleistogamous flowers, tends to avoid cross‐pollination, leading to yield stagnation and reduced variability. Partial male sterile (PS) lines, marked by virescent seedlings, facilitate the crossing programme and help identify true hybrids in the nursery. Phenotypic cluster analysis categorized the 31 finger millet genotypes into six groups, with the greatest inter‐cluster distance (5.03) observed between cluster III, containing fertile lines, and cluster VI, containing sterile lines. A set of 81 polymorphic SSR markers was used to screen these genotypes, with polymorphic information content (PIC) ranging from 0.06 to 0.64 and an average of 0.32. Molecular diversity analysis grouped fertile genotypes into clusters a, b, and c, whereas sterile genotypes fell into clusters d, e, f, and g, indicating that the SSR markers effectively distinguished between fertile and sterile genotypes. The 80 hybrids, produced by crossing 10 lines with eight testers in an L × T design, were evaluated over two seasons at UAS, Bangalore. The hybrid recovery percentages from these PS lines ranged from 5.71 to 86.27. Hybrids such as 1‐16‐5 × GPU67, 21‐8‐4 × WN591, 34‐3 × VL376, 1‐16‐5 × GE436, and 19‐5‐2 × GE4764 in R‐2022, along with 19‐5‐2 × KMR301, E‐13‐2 × GE4972, 1‐16‐5 × KMR301, 21‐8‐4 × GE4764, and 1‐16‐5 × GE4764 in summer‐2023, exhibited heterosis for grain yield per plant. The partial male sterile lines with virescent seedling markers produced significantly more than 80% of the true finger millet hybrids. Besides being genetically diverse, they pave the way for exploiting heterosis breeding in finger millets.