Biotic stress resistance in millets

Abstract

Millets are important crops in the developing countries in the semiarid tropics. Incidentally, these are the regions where most of the world’s poor people live. These crops provide high-energy, nutritious, and healthy food, recommended for children, convalescents as well as elders. Millets can be consistently grown under extreme agricultural conditions (low precipitation, high temperature, and poor soils), where other cereals fail to produce an acceptable harvest. Under the changing climatic scenario millets are being assigned as the crops for future attention. Biotic stresses particularly diseases, insect pests, weeds, and birds are major constraints in the way of realizing the potential yield of millets. In the future these problems are likely to increase because of the perceptible changes in the global climate. Management of biotic stresses in millets is attempted more through resistant cultivars and less or negligibly through the use of chemicals. Host-plant resistance is the most economical and ecosafe method for management of biotic stress and the only affordable method for the poor farmers. A lot of information has been generated on this aspect over time by numerous millet researchers. However, the information is scattered through the literature and there is hardly any publication that has discussed the diseases, insect pests, weeds, Striga, and birds resistance of all the millets including sorghum, pearl millet, and small millets in a single book. In this book, a sincere attempt has been made to present updated information on the subject with emphasis on literature published in the 21st century. All aspects of host-plant resistance including screening techniques, sources, mechanisms and genetics of resistance, and utilization of host resistance by conventional and molecular breeding methods have been discussed in depth. In addition to biology, epidemiology, and resistance, other aspects of millets, such as the origin, distribution, production, and their importance, have been covered for the beginners. The book will be highly useful for researchers and research-planners who are involved in plant protection and production research on millets and related cereals. This book, which is authored by experts in the respective field of studies, will primarily act as a guide for the researchers to formulate suitable research strategies on plant protection. Industry sectors like the “millets seed industry” will benefit from information on biotic stress-related issues that are constraints in seed production. It is also expected to attract global readership among the students in advanced courses.