Two-hundred and twenty-five finger millet germplasm accessions obtained from the Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity and Adet Agricultural Research Center were evaluated in 15×15 simple lattice design with two replications at Koga Irrigation trials site during the 2016/17 dry season. The objective of the study was to assess the genetic diversity of finger millet genotypes based on morpho-agronomic traits. Data were collected on 16 morpho-agronomic traits. Analysis of variance, and cluster and principal component analysis were carried out, and estimates of genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variability, broad sense heritability, and expected genetic advance were made. The analysis of variance revealed that finger millet accessions were significantly different for all of the traits except to days to emergence and number of fingers/ear-head. Genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were highest for numbers of ear-heads/plant with values of 27.11% and 25.03%, respectively. Estimates of broad sense heritability were highest for clum diameter (95.35%) and the lowest for number of ear-heads/plant (3.04%). The expected genetic advance from selection of the top 5% of the accessions ranged from 18.4% for grain yield/plot to 51.46% for ear-heads/plant. The first six PCs explained about 65% of the entire genetic variations with 17.9%, 13.7%, 11.1%, 8.8%, 7% and 6.5% of the total variation accounted by the first to the sixth PCs respectively. Cluster analysis based on the 16 morpho-agronomic traits revealed five distinct clusters comprising 13 to 64 accessions. Culm diameter, numbers of ear-heads/plant, ear-head width, and grain yield/plant could be used as selection criteria due to high GCV, heritability and genetic advance. Overall, the results of the study depicted the presence of sufficient genetic diversity among finger millet accessions for further use in breeding program.
