Harnessing wild relatives of pearl millet for germplasm enhancement: Challenges and opportunitiesSSharmaauthorRSharmaauthorMGovindarajauthorR SMahalaauthorC TSatyavathiauthorR KSrivastavaauthorM KGummaauthorBKilianauthorPearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] is one of the world’s hardiest warmseason
cereal crop and is cultivated mainly in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa
for food, feed, fodder, and brewing. It is mainly cultivated for its gluten-free grains
with high content and better quality of nutrients. Pearl millet is a resilient crop that
can produce grain and biomass under harsh conditions like low fertility, erratic rainfall,
acidic and saline soils, and the hottest climates. However, biotic stresses such
as downy mildew and blast diseases and abiotic stresses, especially drought and
seedling- and flowering-stage heat stress, pose constant threat to the realization of
yield potential of this crop. To make further improvement in threshold level of abiotic
and biotic stress tolerance, breeders are looking for novel genes in diverse germplasm
sources. Crop wild relatives (CWRs) could be a source of novel genes that are important
for diversification of the genetic base of pearl millet. A stage-gate process is proposed
for the efficient management of prebreeding programs using CWRs as a source
of germplasm diversity and improvement. This article explains the various strategies
for capturing and using alleles for climate resilience traits improvement. This article
covers breeders’ perspectives on importance of using CWRs as germplasm source
for crop improvement. This article also describes the availability of CWRs, characterization
of new traits and the strategies to be applied for the identification and
introduction of genes of interest in elite breeding lines and commercial varieties and
hybrids of pearl millet.Pearl MilletFood and NutritionGermplasm2020-12WileyArticle