Progress with Proso, Pearl and Other Millets

PEARL MILLET Pearl millet is one of the two major crops grown to feed people living in the semi-arid, low input dryland agriculture regions of Africa and southeast Asia. People in northern Nambia are almost entirely dependent on pearl millet for food. Four countries in the Sahel of Africa, with a total population of 38 million, depend on pearl millet to provide over 1,000 calories per person per day (Dendy 1995). Pearl millet is adapted to poor, droughty, and infertile soils because it will produce more reliably under these conditions than most other grain crops. However, it readily responds to high fertility and moisture. Pearl millet grows best in light welldrained loamy to sandy soils. It can tolerate acid subsoils to as low as pH=4 and high in aluminum content (National Research Council 1996). Annual rainfall in the areas where this crop is mainly grown ranges from 250 to 700 mm but can be as high as 1500 mm. Pearl millet is an annual, sexual diploid (2n=14 chromosomes) with the A genome (Jauhar and Hanna 1998). Primary breeding research efforts on pearl millet for grain have been carried out at Tifton, Georgia by USDA/ARS scientists Wayne Hanna, Glen Burton, and colleagues, and at the University of Nebraska by David Andrews and John Rajewski. Previous work by Bill Stegmeier in Kansas ceased with his death. Andrews and Burton have recently retired and future breeding efforts in pearl millet are seriously in doubt at this point. Commercial US cultivars are limited to forage hybrids. One recent release from the University of Nebraska takes advantage of extremely short day photoperiod requirements for floral induction, resulting in vegetative production throughout the growing season at latitudes north of Texas. This results in improved late season quality, but complicates production by limiting seed production to the tropics. At one stage as much as 35,000 acres were grown for grain in the southeastern US, but a rust epidemic reduced the acreage to zero. Currently new lines are rust resistant, but there is no commercial production at this time. Breeding and management work may make pearl millet more competitive with other feed grains, but efforts are needed to develop a market that will encourage production. A new ornamental type is expected to be released in the near future from Andrews’ program that has purple pigmentation. His program also released several parental types during the past year.