Assessing Forage Potential of the Global Collection of Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) Germplasm Conserved at the ICRISAT Genebank

Chinnadurai Backiyalakshmi,Varijakshapanicker Padmakumar,Chakrapani Babu,Dagunapur Naresh Reddy,Vania Cristina Renno Azevedo,Kodukula V. S. V. Prasad,Mani Vetriventhan

doi:10.3390/agronomy11091706

Abstract

Finger millet is an important drought-tolerant and grain-nutrient dense food crop grown in semi-arid regions in Asia and Africa. The forage is used as a source of dry roughage for feeding livestock. In this study, the finger millet diversity panel (310 accessions and four controls) representing the global collection of the finger millet germplasm conserved at the ICRISAT genebank was assessed for forage quality and diversity in the years 2018 and 2019. Results of the study suggested that finger millet can generate stover yield ranging from 2890 to 10,779 kg ha−1. Finger millet forage contained 6.47% to 8.15% of crude protein, >90% of dry matter content, 11.47% to 14.17% of ash content, 62.36% to 67.73% of neutral detergent fiber (NDF), 33.07% to 38.37% of acid detergent fiber (ADF), 3.95% to 4.80% of acid detergent lignin (ADL), 6.18% to 6.89% of metabolizable energy (ME) and 45.21% to 49.09% of in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) with the grain yield of 810 to 3698 kg ha−1 at maturity stage. The per se performance between the races, regions, and biological status has been performed and differed significantly for important traits. The 314 accessions were grouped into five clusters based on the performance for food-feed traits. Except for crude protein, there was a positive relationship between forage quality-positive traits and grain yield, indicating that agronomic and forage quality traits could be improved simultaneously. The top 10 promising accessions for important forage quality traits and accessions with multiple forage quality traits were identified. This study provides a detailed understanding of the variability that exists in forage quality traits in crop residues and their association with agronomic traits in the finger millet germplasm. The identified top-performing accessions would be the key genetic resources for developing dual-purpose cultivars and the information from this study will be useful for future finger millet food-feed trait improvement.

Highlights

The finger millet stover is used as forage to some extent but not admired like forage sorghum and pearl millet, due to a lack of scientific research on the quantity and quality of finger millet crop residues
The identification of forage value in the finger millet stover offers a unique opportunity to ameliorate the availability of forage to smallholder livestock farmers
This research provides a detailed insight on diversity and variability for forage quality traits in the diverse set of finger millet accessions

Summary

Introduction

The finger millet crop is highly self-pollinated and allotetraploid in nature (AABB) with the chromosome number 2n = 4x = 36. It has superior grain nutritional quality with multiple health benefits [1,2,3,4,5,6]. It can produce substantial forage and grain yield even under low input conditions [7]. In the context of emerging climate change, there is a need to tap the crop’s potential for a dual purpose like other millets because of the increasing demand [8]

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Discussion

Conclusion