Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) improvement: Challenges and prospects—A review

Gebreyohannes, A and Shimelis, H and Mashilo, J and Odeny, D A and Tadesse, T and Ojiewo, C O (2024) Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) improvement: Challenges and prospects—A review. Plant Breeding (TSI), 143 (3). pp. 350-374. ISSN 0179-9541

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Abstract

Finger millet is a climate-resilient and highly nutritious small grain crop widely grown in the semi-arid tropics. It has multiple uses, including for food, feed and beverage preparations. However, finger millet is an under-utilized and under-researched crop with a mean yield of <1.0 t/ha despite a potential productivity of up to 8 t/ha. The yield gap is attributed to several production constraints, such as biotic and abiotic stresses, a lack of access to improved seeds and production inputs and poor agronomic management practices. There are valuable genetic resources and genetic variability of finger millet in its centres of diversity and global gene banks for variety design, product development and commercialization. The genetic variability can be harnessed further to integrate essential traits into candidate varieties through conventional and modern breeding methods. Breeding and genetic innovations such as genomics-assisted breeding, mutation breeding and genome editing would accelerate finger millet breeding and new variety design and deployment. The objective of this review was to document the opportunities, challenges and prospects of finger millet improvement as a guide for variety development and deployment with enhanced grain yield and nutritional contents. The first section describes global production status and yield gains, major production and productivity challenges in finger millet. This is followed by an in-depth presentation on breeding and genetic progress on variety development with improved agronomic and nutritional quality traits, drought and salinity tolerance, and fungal diseases, weeds and insect pest resistance. Further, the review summarized finger millet's genetic and genomic resources, reference genomes, whole genome re-sequencing and transcriptomics of finger millet technologies, genetic engineering and genome editing and their integration with conventional breeding methods for variety design with desired end-use traits. The review provides foundational information to expedite the development of new-generation finger millet cultivars with desirable product profiles, including high grain yield potential, early maturity, desirable seed colour, compact head type, food and feed nutrients quality and high marketability through modern breeding approaches.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Research Program : East & Southern Africa
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	finger millet breeding, finger millet global production, genetic engineering, genetic gain, genome editing, production constraints, skim sequencing, whole genome re-sequencing
Subjects:	Others > Genetic Engineering Others > Plant Breeding Mandate crops > Millets > Finger Millet Others > Genetics and Genomics
Depositing User:	Mr Nagaraju T
Date Deposited:	20 Jun 2024 04:25
Last Modified:	20 Jun 2024 04:25
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/12711
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/p...
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	This study is made possible through funding by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) through ‘Harnessing Opportunities for Productivity Enhancement (HOPE II) for Sorghum and Millets in Sub-Saharan Africa’ project (grant number OPP1198373), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and Melkassa Agricultural Research Center/Ethiopia are acknowledged for supporting this study and providing study leave for the first author. The University of KwaZulu-Natal is gratefully acknowledged for the PhD study placement of the first author.
Links:	Google Scholar

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