Peanut is gaining importance more for its confectionery and nutritive values than for its oil content around the world. Improving confectionery qualities is an added advantage for farming community. Hence, in the present study, multivariate analytical tools were used to identify parents with complementary traits for using them in breeding programme. PCA revealed contribution of pod yield, 100-seed weight, oil content, and O/L ratio towards variance. Pod yield was positively associated with 100-seed weight, oil and protein contents. Oil content had weak association with protein content, oleic acid and O/L ratio. UPGMA clustering revealed grouping of cultivars based on origin and its area recommendation. Cultivars superior for yield (GPBD-4, M-28-2 and JL 24) and confectionery traits (S-230 and Dh-8) were identified. Strong positive relation of yield with confectionery traits indicates possibility of breeding high yielding confectionery grade cultivars. Multivariate analytical tools could be used to identify parents for location specific breeding for improvement of Confectionary traits.

Searching rice cultivars or variety with good processing and high in important essential nutrients are prime important in the present context of rice research. The north eastern hill region of India which is a mega biodiversity hot spot of the world has numerous cultivars of rice with tremendous potential of high quality rice. Eighteen indigenous cultivars of Tripura, a north eastern hill state of India were subjected to the study. Majority of the cultivars were of short bold grain type. Eleven cultivars were aromatic type with one cultivar of strong aroma comparable to Basmati rice. Eleven cultivars were found to possess higher hulling percentage more than 65% and six cultivars with more than 65% out turn. Majority of the cultivars had low amylose contents (<20%). Four cultivars were having higher total crude protein (>10%), six cultivars were having higher iron contents (>10ppm). In most of the characters, heritability (h 2 ) was more than the genetic advance indicating more of environmental effect. Amylose, crude fibre and iron, genetic advance was high; selection for these traits will improve the genotypic value of selected plants over the parents. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was found in iron and amylose. The association of crude protein is significant but negative with carbohydrates and amylose, while with crude fat and zinc, the association is significant and positive. Carbohydrate was significantly and positively correlated with ash percent and iron concentration and negatively associated with total fat. There was no significant correlation between carbohydrate and amylose.

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The legendary Vechur cattle of Kerala, described as a very short breed, and the crossbred (CB) Sunandini cattle population exhibited great phenotypic variation; hence, the present study attempted to analyze the genetic diversity existing between them. A set of 14 polymorphic microsatellites were chosen from FAO-ISAG panel and amplified from genomic DNA isolated from blood samples of 30 Vechur and 64 unrelated crossbred cattle, using fluorescent labeled primers. Both populations revealed high genetic diversity as evidenced from high observed number of alleles, Polymorphic Information Content and expected heterozygosity. Observed heterozygosity was lesser (0.699) than expected (0.752) in Vechur population which was further supported by positive F value of 0.1149, indicating slight level of inbreeding in Vechur population. Overall, F value was 0.065, which means genetic differentiation between crossbred and Vechur population was 6.5%, indicating that the crossbred cattle must have differentiated into a definite population that is different from the indigenous Vechur cows. Structure analysis indicated that the two populations showed distinct differences, with two underlying clusters. The present study supports the separation between Taurine and Zebu cattle and throws light onto the genetic diversity and relationship between native Vechur and crossbred cattle populations in Kerala state.

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