author(s)
Vinod Kumar and Rajani Bisen

abstract
The present investigation was carried out at Project Coordinating Unit (Sesame and Niger) Research Farm, JNKVV, and Jabalpur (M.P.) during 2015-16 to determine the relationship and genetic diversity among 71 Niger germplasm accessions using principal component analysis. In this study, Principal component 1 had the contribution from the traits viz., number of secondary branches per plant, number of capitula per plant, 1000 seed weight, seed yield per plant and seed length which accounted 25.78% to the total variability. Number of primary branches per plant and free fatty acid content (%) has contributed 17.92% to the total variability in principal component 2. Days to 50% flowering and days to maturity has contributed 12.30% to the total variability in principal component 3. The remaining variability of 8.39% and 7.41% was consolidated in principal component 4 and principal component 5 by various traits like oil content and plant height. The cumulative variance of 71.82% of total variation among 11 characters was explained by the first five axes. Thus the results of principal component analysis revealed, wide genetic variability exists in this Niger germplasm accessions.