Lakshmi Kant

Gene Discovery and Advances in Finger Millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.] Genomics-An Important Nutri-Cereal of Future.

The rapid strides in molecular marker technologies followed by genomics, and next generation sequencing advancements in three major crops (rice, maize and wheat) of the world have given opportunities for their use in the orphan, but highly valuable future crops, including finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.]. Finger millet has many special agronomic and nutritional characteristics, which make it an indispensable crop in arid, semi-arid, hilly and tribal areas of India and Africa. The crop has proven its adaptability in harsh conditions and has shown resilience to climate change. The adaptability traits of finger millet have shown the advantage over major cereal grains under stress conditions, revealing it as a storehouse of important genomic resources for crop improvement. Although new technologies for genomic studies are now available, progress in identifying and tapping these important alleles or genes is lacking. RAPDs were the default choice for genetic diversity studies in the crop until the last decade, but the subsequent development of SSRs and comparative genomics paved the way for the marker assisted selection in finger millet. Resistance gene homologs from NBS-LRR region of finger millet for blast and sequence variants for nutritional traits from other cereals have been developed and used invariably. Population structure analysis studies exhibit 2–4 sub-populations in the finger millet gene pool with separate grouping of Indian and exotic genotypes. Recently, the omics technologies have been efficiently applied to understand the nutritional variation, drought tolerance and gene mining. Progress has also occurred with respect to transgenics development. This review presents the current biotechnological advancements along with research gaps and future perspective of genomic research in finger millet.

From zero to hero: the past, present and future of grain amaranth breeding

Key messageGrain amaranth is an underutilized crop with high nutritional quality from the Americas. Emerging genomic and biotechnological tools are becoming available that allow the integration of novel breeding techniques for rapid improvement of amaranth and other underutilized crops.AbstractOut of thousands of edible plants, only three cereals—maize, wheat and rice—are the major food sources for a majority of people worldwide. While these crops provide high amounts of calories, they are low in protein and other essential nutrients. The dependence on only few crops, with often narrow genetic basis, leads to a high vulnerability of modern cropping systems to the predicted climate change and accompanying weather extremes. Broadening our food sources through the integration of so-called orphan crops can help to mitigate the effects of environmental change and improve qualitative food security. Thousands of traditional crops are known, but have received little attention in the last century and breeding efforts were limited. Amaranth is such an underutilized pseudocereal that is of particular interest because of its balanced amino acid and micronutrient profiles. Additionally, the C4 photosynthetic pathway and ability to withstand environmental stress make the crop a suitable choice for future agricultural systems. Despite the potential of amaranth, efforts of genetic improvement lag considerably behind those of major crops. The progress in novel breeding methods and molecular techniques developed in model plants and major crops allow a rapid improvement of underutilized crops. Here, we review the history of amaranth and recent advances in genomic tools and give a concrete perspective how novel breeding techniques can be implemented into breeding programs. Our perspectives are transferable to many underutilized crops. The implementation of these could improve the nutritional quality and climate resilience of future cropping systems.

Mapping quantitative trait loci for important agronomic traits in finger millet (Eleusine coracana) mini core collection with genomic and genic SSR markers

Allele identification for agro-morphological traits and stress resistance is a major concern across the globe for improving productivity of finger millet. Here, we used 46 genomic and 58 genic simple sequence repeats (SSRs) markers in a set of 66 accessions used to constitute a global mini-core collection for analysing their genetic structure as a population and establishing association among markers and twenty morphological traits including resistance to finger blast. Phenotypic data revealed a wide range of variation for all traits except flag leaf width and flag leaf sheath width. We got amplification of 81 alleles by the 31 genomic SSRs at an average of 2.61 alleles per locus. Polymorphism information content (PIC) values varied from 0.21 to 0.75 and average gene diversity was 0.49. Structure analysis of the population using the genomic SSR data divided the accessions into two clusters where Indian and exotic accessions were grouped in separate clusters. Genic SSRs which were associated with blast resistance genes, amplified 36 alleles at an average of 2 alleles per locus. PIC values ranged from 0.32 to 0.37 and average gene diversity was 0.45. Population structure analysis using data from these SSRs grouped the accessions into three clusters, which broadly correspond to their reaction to blast disease. Twenty-two significant associations were found using the GLM approach for 20 agro-morphological traits both in 2012 and 2014, while, 7 and 5 significant marker-trait associations were identified using MLM in 2012 and 2014 respectively. The SSR markers FMBLEST35 and FMBLEST36 designed from the Pi21 gene sequence of rice were found to be associated with blast disease resistance in finger millet indicating that the gene homologues play a significant role in an important role for neck blast resistance.

Cross-genera transferability of rice and finger millet genomic SSRs to barnyard millet (Echinochloa spp.)

Abstract Barnyard millet (Echinochloa spp.) is an important crop from nutritional point of view, nevertheless, the genetic information is very scarce. In the present investigation, rice and finger millet genomic SSRs were used for assessing cross transferability, identification of polymorphic markers, syntenic regions, genetic diversity and population structure analysis of barnyard millet genotypes. We observed 100% cross transferability for finger millet SSRs, of which 91% were polymorphic, while 71% of rice markers were cross transferable with 48% polymorphic out of them. Twenty-nine and sixteen highly polymorphic finger millet and rice SSRs yielded a mean of 4.3 and 3.38 alleles per locus in barnyard millet genotypes, respectively. The PIC values varied from 0.27 to 0.73 at an average of 0.54 for finger millet SSRs, whereas it was from 0.15 to 0.67 at an average of 0.44 for rice SSRs. High synteny was observed for markers related to panicle length, yield-related traits, spikelet fertility, plant height, root traits, leaf senescence, blast and brown plant hopper resistance. Although the rice SSRs located on chromosome 10 followed by chromosome 6 and 11 were found to be more transferable to barnyard millet, the finger millet SSRs were more polymorphic and transferable to barnyard millet genotypes. These SSR data of finger millet and rice individually as well as combined together grouped the 11 barnyard millet genotypes into 2 major clusters. The results of population structure analysis were similar to cluster analysis.

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) varietal adaptability in North-Western Himalayan region of India using AMMI and GGE biplot techniques

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn. subsp. coracana ) production has become stagnant over the years and one of the possible ways to increase the production can be spread of widely adaptable high yielding cultivars. Five national finger millet cultivars were grown in randomized complete block design at ICARVivekananda Institute of Hill Agriculture for six consecutive years to evaluate the grain yield stability. The grain yield data were subjected to AMMI and GGE biplot techniques for assessing the stability and patterns of GE interaction in finger millet National cultivars. The combined ANOVA showed that finger millet grain yield was significantly affected by environment, which explained 54.67% of the total treatment (G+E+GE) variation, whereas the G and GEI accounted for 10.38% and 34.96%, respectively. The partitioning of GEI sum of squares using AMMI analysis indicated that the first two PCAs were highly significant. The first IPCA axis (IPCA1) accounted for 50.3% of the G×E interaction sum of squares. The second IPCA axis accounted for 38.2% of the interaction sum of squares. Both represented a total of 88.5% variation. AMMI 1 biplot indicated the general adaptation of genotype HR 374 across the environments, whereas the other genotypes showed specific adaptation to one or other environments. GGE-biplot graphical analysis further confirmed the results and revealed that HR 374 as an ideal genotype in terms of high yield and stability followed by RAU 8 as desirable genotype. In our research, both of AMMI and biplot models were successful in assessing the performance of genotypes and the selection of best genotype was identical in both of them.

Development and evaluation of early maturing white-grained finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) genotypes for cultivation in sub-mountain Himalayan region of India

White grained finger millet genotypes has become a thrust area in finger millet breeding due to increased demand of non-glutinous food products and lesser acceptability of brown grained finger millet. Sixteen white grain finger millet lines were developed by crossing extra early maturing brown grained finger millet genotypes including adapted varieties with late maturing white grained finger millet genotypes. The quantitative data of 16 lines along with parents were subjected to multivariate analysis. A wide range of variation was observed for all the studied traits. The parental lines of brown and white grained finger millet genotypes exhibited extreme values for grain yield and days to maturity whereas, the developed white grained genotypes showed moderate values. Projections of genotypes in PCA biplot showed close association of newly developed white grain genotypes VL 427, VL 360, VR 485, VR 443, VL 366, VR 425B, VR 425A and VL 356 with VL 201 (brown type) because of earliness and high yield potential. The cluster analysis further indicated that white grained genotypes from second cluster are probable candidates for further testing and release, and further refinement in breeding strategy by hybridizing white genotypes from second cluster with brown genotype in third cluster for incorporating earliness and high yield.