Cost-effective breeding for disease resistance in pearl millet. Validated RNRRS Output.
Abstract
This is one of 280 summaries describing key outputs from the projects run by DFID's 10-year Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) programmes.
Summary for Project title: R8183: Making more miracles: Exploiting marker-assisted methods for pearl millet improvement.
A cost-effective method of breeding millet resistant to disease is now available. This new technique has already been used to insert genes resistant to downy mildew—the most devastating of all the pearl millet diseases—into top hybrid varieties. Poor farmers in Haryana and Rajasthan now grow these hybrids over 150,000 hectares, both as food grain and for animal feed. Government and international laboratories in India use these methods. Millet resistant to mildew could have a huge impact in India where 40% of the world's millet is grown and over half of world's poorest people live. Now, the techniques are spreading to the private sector and research organisations in Africa, South Asia, and the Americas.
The CD has the following information for this output: Description, Validation, Current Situation, Current Promotion, Impacts On Poverty, Environmental Impact. Attached PDF (10 pp.) taken from the CD.
Citation
PSP24, New technologies, new processes, new policies: tried-and-tested and ready-to-use results from DFID-funded research, Research Into Use Programme, Aylesford, Kent, UK, ISBN 978-0-9552595-6-2, p 27.