EXPLOITING THE PEARL MILLET GENETIC DIVERSITY FOR IDENTIFICATION OF IRON AND ZINC DENSE SEED PARENTAL LINES

Abstract

Micronutrient malnutrition has been recognized as massive health issue, affecting over two billion people, mostly women, children and infants worldwide especially in developing countries. Agricultural approaches including crop based food products and micronutrient (Fe and Zn) biofortified crop cultivars can provide the most cost effective and sustainable solution for this problem. Micronutrient bio-fortification in agricultural crops can be done with conventional breeding strategies, because traits for micronutrient enrichment exist within their genomes and can be used for considerable micronutrient levels in food grain crops without any significant negative impact on crop productivity. In the efforts to address this problem, pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R.Br.), field trials were conducted during kharif 2013 and 2014, to investigate the magnitude of variation in Fe and Zn contents. Composition of the genotypes tested was not affected to an appreciable extent by the growing season. During kharif 2013 and 2014, Fe content in 92 diverse genotypes (Inbreds and B-lines) varied from 23 to 123 mg/kg and 28 to 101 mg/ kg while Zn content varied from 26 to 72 mg/kg and 34 to 70 mg/kg. The correlation co-efficient between Fe and Zn content was positive and highly significant (r =0.523 to 0.702, p<0.01) during both the seasons, indicating likely usefulness of simultaneous improvement of both the micronutrients. Four promising parental lines (HMS 53B, HMS 40b HMS14B and DPHBL 11-123) with >85 mg/kg grain Fe and >55 mg/kg grain Zn content, have the potential to be used as seed parents for development of Fe and Zn biofortified pearl millet hybrids or composites.