Farmers' seed management practices open up new base populations for pearl millet breeding in a semi‐arid zone of India

Abstract

Farmers in western Rajasthan (north‐west India) produce and maintain their landrace populations of pearl millet through their own distinct seed management practices. The objective of this study was to characterize morphological and agronomic variability of different traits between and within three farmers' populations using quantitative‐genetic parameters. Populations examined were a typical landrace and two modified landraces, which were generated through farmer introgression of modern varieties with different levels of subsequent selection. From these three populations, 100 random full‐sib progenies were evaluated in field trials at two locations in western Rajasthan over two years. Significant genetic variation existed within the three populations. Estimates of heritability were moderate to high for all observed traits. Predicted selection response for grain yield across environments was 1.6% for the typical landrace and 2.2% for both the modified landraces. Results suggest that the introgression of modern varieties into landraces had increased the genetic diversity. Therefore, farmers' current breeding activities could open up new resources for plant breeding programmes aiming at plant improvement for the semiarid zones of India.

Hybridization of Indian Landraces and African Elite Composites of Pearl Millet Results in Biomass and Stover Yield Improvement under Arid Zone Conditions

“…Research results in other crops (Godshalk and Kauff mann 1995;Vetelainen et al, 1997) also support our fi nding of using exotic materials to add favorable traits that might be absent in local materials. Results obtained here also lend support to prevalent farmers' practices in western Rajasthan of introgression of traditional landrace with modern cultivars (Christinck, 2002) to increase the diversity (vom Brocke et al, 2002(vom Brocke et al, , 2003a and to expand the range of adaptation of their seed stocks (vom Brocke et al, 2003b).…”

Farmers' Seed Systems and Management Practices Determine Pearl Millet Genetic Diversity Patterns in Semiarid Regions of India

“…The remaining 12 were control cultivars (Table 1) Nine control cultivars were provided by ICRISAT's gene bank, which were representative of cultivars grown commercially or which are frequently used in Indian pearl millet breeding programs. The remaining cultivars were derived from three farmer‐generated populations in the village of Aagolai in the western Rajasthan district of Jodhpur (Vom Brocke et al, 2002). Each consisted of about 90 full‐sib progenies.…”

A yield architecture framework to explain adaptation of pearl millet to environmental stress

“…Therefore, their contribution to grain yield will generally decline as assimilate supply becomes more limited (Table 1). However, even under the low-yielding conditions of Jodhpur 1997Jodhpur , 1998, the contribution of nodal tillers to the grain yield of Nokha Local was 20 and 13%, respectively, and results of vom Brocke et al (2001) con®rm that proli®c nodal tiller production can occur at yield levels well below 1 ton ha À1 . Presumably, even under these low-yielding conditions, the potential grain growth rate is too low for all available assimilates to be translocated to the grains.…”