BACKGROUND During the Neolithic revolution, early farmers altered plant development to domesticate crops. Similar traits were often selected independently in different wild species; yet the genetic basis of this parallel phenotypic evolution remains elusive. Plant architecture ranks among these target traits composing the domestication syndrome. We focused on the reduction of branching which oc...

A considerable proportion of the arable land cropped with pearl millet in northern Nigeria is affected by salt concentration. Pot experiments were conducted at Maiduguri in Sudan savanna to determine the influence of NaCl concentration on growth and nutrient content of pearl millet. The treatments comprised of three NaCl concentrations: 0.0, 1.4336 and 2.1504g/kg of soil and five pearl millet v...

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) has potential as a grain crop for dryland crop production in the southeastern United States. Whether or not pearl millet will be compatible in rotation with cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), corn (Zea mays), and peanut (Arachis hypogaea) will depend, in part, on its host status for important plant-parasitic nematodes of these crops. The pearl millet hybrid 'TifGrain...

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics conserves 335 accessions of Pennisetum glaucum subsp. monodii originated in 13 countries. In the present study, the collection was evaluated and assessed for diversity and geographical gaps. A wide variation was observed in the collection for total tillers per plant (16 to 609), productive tillers per plant (12 to 368), leaf l...

This study explores farmer acceptance and valuation of a biofortified staple food crop in a developing country prior to its commercialization. We focus on the hypothetical introduction of a high-iron pearl millet variety in Maharashtra, India, where pearl millet is among the most important staple crops. A choice experiment is used to investigate farmer preferences for and trade-offs among vario...

Sorghum-sudangrass hybrids and pearl millet, Pennisetum americanum (L.) Leeke., are grown extensively in the southeastern United States; the former is used for forage, seed, and summer cover crop and the latter, primarily for grazing, forage, and summer cover crop. The extended period during which these crops can be planted makes them especially adapted to a doublecropping system with winter-gr...

The purpose of this study was to compare in vitro digestibility, protein distribution patterns, and amino acid composition of pearl millet with other major cereals. Digestibility values for the pearl millet varieties were higher than that of sorghum and comparable to that of maize. In contrast to sorghum, digestibility of pearl millet and maize did not decrease significantly upon cooking. Prote...

to study the effects of intercropping fodder sorghum with pearl millet at different row proportions and plant densities, an experiment was conducted at the research farm of university of tehran in 2005. the experimental design was a split plot with three replications. three different densities of 200000, 270000 and 340000 plants per hectare were as main factor and seven different planting propo...

Pearl millet, Pennisetum glaucum, has potential as a grain crop in the southeastern United States. Although it is used as a food grain in India and Africa, its primary use in the United States is high quality feed for poultry and livestock (1,6,15). Hybrids adapted to the southeast should be high yielding, resistant to the rust fungus Puccinia substriata var. indica, and early maturing. The two...

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is a small diploid C4 panicoid crop species, whose genome is being sequenced by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) of the Department of Energy. The rationale for sequencing foxtail millet is that it is closely related to the bioenergy grasses switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), napiergrass (Pennisetum purpureum), and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), yet is a more tr...