Abstract
Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum R. Br.) is an important staple and nutritious food crop in the semiarid and arid ecologies of South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In view of climate change, depleting water resources, and widespread malnutrition, there is a need to accelerate the rate of genetic gains in pearl millet productivity. This review discusses past strategies and future approaches to accelerate genetic gains to meet future demand. Pearl millet breeding in India has historically evolved very comprehensively from open-pollinated varieties development to hybrid breeding. Availability of stable cytoplasmic male sterility system with adequate restorers and strategic use of genetic resources from India and SSA laid the strong foundation of hybrid breeding. Genetic and cytoplasmic diversification of hybrid parental lines, periodic replacement of hybrids, and breeding disease-resistant and stress-tolerant cultivars have been areas of very high priority. As a result, an annual yield increase of 4% has been realized in the last three decades. There is considerable scope to further accelerate the efforts on hybrid breeding for drought-prone areas in SA and SSA. Heterotic grouping of hybrid parental lines is essential to sustain long-term genetic gains. Time is now ripe for mainstreaming of the nutritional traits improvement in pearl millet breeding programs. New opportunities are emerging to improve the efficiency and precision of breeding. Development and application of high-throughput genomic tools, speed breeding, and precision phenotyping protocols need to be intensified to exploit a huge wealth of native genetic variation available in pearl millet to accelerate the genetic gains.
Highlights
INTRODUCTIONGenetic Gains in Pearl Millet an excellent crop for the short growing season and under improved crop management (Yadav and Rai, 2013) and is emerging as an important alternative crop for feed, food, fodder, and relay crop in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, United States, West Asia and North Africa region, and Central Asia
We examine the prospects of further accelerating genetic gains to meet the greater demand for pearl millet and to make its cultivation more profitable
Multilocational and multiyear field screening in summer season involving a large number of hybrid parental lines, germplasm accessions, and improved populations established that stigma is more heatsensitive than pollen; large genetic variation exists between breeding lines and within open-pollinating populations; the boot-leaf stage is more heat-sensitive than panicle-emergence stage, and heat tolerance behaves as a dominant trait
Summary
Genetic Gains in Pearl Millet an excellent crop for the short growing season and under improved crop management (Yadav and Rai, 2013) and is emerging as an important alternative crop for feed, food, fodder, and relay crop in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, United States, West Asia and North Africa region, and Central Asia. Pearl millet demand is anticipated to increase in the future because of increasing human and livestock populations in SSA and SA and as a healthy food and other industrial uses (Rai et al, 2008). Pearl millet production is likely to become more challenging because of predicted intense drought stress, rise in temperature, and greater disease incidences in SSA (Sultan et al, 2013) and SA (Rama Rao et al, 2019). We examine the prospects of further accelerating genetic gains to meet the greater demand for pearl millet and to make its cultivation more profitable
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