From ‘pearl’ of millet to ‘gold’ of desert: A popular hybrid emerges improved through genomics-assisted breeding
GHB 538, a popular pearl millet hybrid, was improved through genomics-assisted breeding. Named Maru Sona or desert gold, the revised hybrid has 82 % downy mildew resistance over the original hybrid. The improvement also resulted in an increase in grain (3.5%) and fodder (10.8%) yield, resistance to blast (28.6%) and rust (91.4%) diseases as well as grain protein content (12.5%) while maintaining GHB 538’s hallmark early flowering (44 days). Read more
More support coming farmers’ way in the ASAL parts of Kenya
When Betty Bondo, a farmer in Kenya’s Makueni County, started growing new green gram varieties introduced by ICRISAT, her yield tripled from Read more...
Groundnut variety tolerant to drought and foliar fungal disease with superior haulm quality released in Odisha, India
After a gap of 14 years, Odisha state in India officially released a new groundnut variety ‘Kalinga Groundnut-101’ as an alternative to Read more...
ICRISAT and local seed companies to build a seed industry for supply of high performing hybrids to small holder farmers
Demand for sorghum and pearl millet as major food, feed and fodder crop continues to increase globally. However, in the last 50 Read more...
Spotlight on pearl millet – biofortification and drought tolerance
Biofortification Pearl millet scientists discussed the ‘Future micronutrient breeding strategy in pearl millet’, and agreed that phenotyping for micronutrient trait was the Read more...
Growing interest for sorghum in Mali
A team of 15 newly recruited agricultural technicians were given an overview of sorghum breeding during a tour of ICRISAT-Mali. This included Read more...
Drought-tolerant crops to the rescue in Kenya
Replacing maize with drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum, millets, pigeonpea, cowpea and green gram is helping farmers overcome the failure of rains Read more...
New initiative to help Sorghum and Millet farmers increase their yields in spite of high temperatures and low rainfall
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (May 11, 2016). A dryland cereals improvement project ‘HOPE Phase 2’ aimed at improving productivity of sorghum, pearl millet Read more...