Progress in pearl millet pre-breeding

Efforts to develop pearl millet with improved resistance to drought and blast disease recently got a major boost.

Pearl millet is an important source of nutrition for millions of people in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, pearl millet blast and extreme weather conditions are serious threats to its cultivation. This underlines the importance of identifying sources and breeding for drought and blast resistance. In a Crop Wild Relatives-funded project entitled Synthesis of new abiotic and biotic stress tolerant gene pool through introgression of alleles from wild species into pearl millet cultivars ICRISAT scientists are identifying promising introgression lines after multi-location trials.

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