A collaborative research project of Corteva Agriscience, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has resequenced pearl millet (bajra) genomes, which led to development of new molecular markers.
This has opened the door to create millet cultivars with exceptional yield performance and improved nutritional quality, Corteva Agriscience said in a statement.
Stating that millet lacked reliable DNA markers until now, three high-quality platinum-grade genome assemblies have emerged out of this research, representing the active global breeding germplasm, it said. These newly-identified DNA markers provide an invaluable roadmap for enhancing pearl millet productivity on a global scale, with far-reaching implications for addressing food security challenges, it added.
Food security
Given the recent G20 declarations on finding solutions to address food security and nutritional security and millets being recognised as a key crop due to their exceptional nutrition and climate resilience, the collaborative breakthrough promises to play a pivotal role in sustainable food production and nutritional security.
“The fidelity of the long-read sequences and improved resolution of haplotypes provided by these platinum-grade genome assemblies will aid in understanding the genomic distinctions characterizing global heterotic gene pools in pearl millet,” Corteva said. This research also identifies structural variations that can be used to investigate traits related to heterosis, such as fertility restoration, disease resistance, and agronomy.
It also said that gene annotation and enrichment analyses revealed that the millet genome is enriched with cysteine and methionine coding genes, aligning with previous findings of higher amino acid concentrations in pearl millet compared to legumes such as pigeon peas (tur) and chickpeas (chana).