Phenotypic characterization of core accessions of grain amaranth (Amaranthus hypochondriacus L.)

Grain amaranth is an underutilized pseudo-cereal recognized as an important nutritional crop owing to its balanced nutrient profile. A total of two hundred and fifty-one accessions of grain amaranth identified as core, from a pool of nine-hundred accessions, were assessed for phenotypic performance and genetic diversity across two locations. The establishment of the core accession aimed to reduce the dataset and enhance the accessibility of germplasm resources. This study primarily aimed to identify elite accessions exhibiting desirable agro-morphological traits and on the basis of their variability. ANOVA and diversity indices demonstrated a significant amount of variability for all the quantitative and qualitative traits. Traits such as plant height, inflorescence length, and seed yield showed high GA and high heritability estimates for both locations, with the lowest being observed for days to maturity. The accessions were grouped into four primary clusters with majority of accessions i.e., 92 (37