Little Millet, Panicum sumatrense, An Under-utilized Multipurpose CropMVetriventhanauthorH DUpadhyayaauthorLittle millet is a native crop of India, and well adapted to varied soil and environmental conditions, short duration with considerable within species diversity, and has huge potential to produce good grain yield and high biomass with limited water supply under marginal lands of Indian condition. To assess the grain and biomass yield potentials, 200 accessions, including core collection (56) were evaluated in an alpha-design using two replications. The residual maximum likelihood (REML) analysis indicated that variance due to genotypes was significant for important traits including grain and biomass yields. A large variability was observed for days to flowering (range 38 to 97 days), plant height (94 to 198 cm), basal tillers (7.8 to 13.32), grain yield (5 to 12 g plant-1) and dry matter yield (23 to 159 g plant-1). Accessions belonging to race robusta were late flowering (79 days after sowing), taller (167 cm) and having higher dry matter yield (88 g plant-1) and slightly greater grain yield (7.8 g plant-1) than that of race nana. Accessions producing higher grain yield (>10 g plant-1; IPMr# 1021, 841, 1017, 1063, 983, 712, 1040) and for higher dry matter yield (>133 g plant-1; IPMr# 858, 1043, 1070, 1063, 877) were identified. Due to its short duration and high biomass yield, little millet an under-utilized crop has potential as bioenergy crop besides providing food and fodder. Research is in progress to assess sequence variations linked with grain and biomass yields, and other important agronomic traits.Millets2016-11Conference or Workshop Item