Search

Main conclusion: This review discusses the Finger millet's rich nutritional profile, bioactive potential, and industrial applications, combined with its climate resilience, which make it a promising crop for enhancing food security and promoting sustainable agriculture. This review also highlights its significant potential to address malnutrition and mitigate climate change impacts. The emergence of Finger millet from “poor man’s staple food” to “a nutrient rich cereal” has encouraged the need to explore this crop at a wider scale. It is a highly significant crop due to its rich nutritional and bioactive profile, diverse biological activities, and promising industrial applications, along with the high climate resilience. This comprehensive review evaluates its nutritional composition by comparing favorably with other cereals and millets and emphasizing its potential to address malnutrition and enhance food security. Furthermore, it explores the phytochemical/bioactive potential and strategies to enhance their bioavailability followed biological activities of Finger millet by highlighting its various health-promoting properties. The review also discusses industrial potential of finger millet including its role in nutraceutical and functional food production, as well as bioenergy generation. In addition, role of Finger millet as a climate-resilient crop; specifically, the available genetic resources and identification of genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with major stress tolerance traits have also been discussed. By providing a comprehensive synthesis of existing knowledge, this study offers valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders engaged in efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, enhance food and nutrition security, and mitigate the impacts of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat and drought stresses have negative impacts on wheat yield and growth worldwide, causing up to 60% and 40% yield losses, respectively, but their combined effect can cause severe losses. The present study aimed to identify the high-yielding genetic resources tolerant to drought and/or heat stresses under climate change scenarios. The field trials on 42 genotypes were conducted at three locations in four environments (normal TSIR-NS, drought TSRF-DR, heat LSIR-HT, and heat and drought combined LSRF-DHT) each for two consecutive years. Yield contributing traits were recorded in all the experiments and all the locations: SI (susceptibility index) and STI (stress tolerance index) were also estimated. GY (Grain yield) was severely affected by LSRF-DHT (48.6%), followed by TSRF-DR (23.6%) and LSIR-HT (16.8%). GY had a positive correlation with BM (biomass), HI (harvest index), and TGW (1000-grain weight) under all environments and negative with DH (days to heading) (LSIR-HT and LSRF-DHT). Stepwise regression analysis revealed a higher contribution of BM and HI towards GY under all environments. GW (grain weight/spike) contributed under LSIR-HT and LSRF-DHT, and GN (grain number/spike) under TSIR-NS and TSRF-DR. GFD (grain-filling duration), TGW, and PTL (productive tillers) contributed under all conditions except LSRF-DHT. WS 2016-4 was the only genotype that yielded high under all the conditions. WS 2016-12 and CNM 16-1 were tolerant to heat and drought stresses and high yielding. HINDI 62, HTW 11, and QBP 1606 were less sensitive to all the stresses but low yielding. Overall, out of 30 tolerant genotypes (10 of each category), 19 adapted to escape mechanism which is irrespective of their yielding level. The study demonstrated the potential of identified genotypes in wheat breeding for climate resilience and the traits imparting tolerance to these genotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat and drought stresses have negative impacts on wheat yield and growth worldwide, causing up to 60% and 40% yield losses, respectively, but their combined effect can cause severe losses. The present study aimed to identify the high-yielding genetic resources tolerant to drought and/or heat stresses under climate change scenarios. The field trials on 42 genotypes were conducted at three locations in four environments (normal TSIR-NS, drought TSRF-DR, heat LSIR-HT, and heat and drought combined LSRF-DHT) each for two consecutive years. Yield contributing traits were recorded in all the experiments and all the locations: SI (susceptibility index) and STI (stress tolerance index) were also estimated. GY (Grain yield) was severely affected by LSRF-DHT (48.6%), followed by TSRF-DR (23.6%) and LSIR-HT (16.8%). GY had a positive correlation with BM (biomass), HI (harvest index), and TGW (1000-grain weight) under all environments and negative with DH (days to heading) (LSIR-HT and LSRF-DHT). Stepwise regression analysis revealed a higher contribution of BM and HI towards GY under all environments. GW (grain weight/spike) contributed under LSIR-HT and LSRF-DHT, and GN (grain number/spike) under TSIR-NS and TSRF-DR. GFD (grain-filling duration), TGW, and PTL (productive tillers) contributed under all conditions except LSRF-DHT. WS 2016-4 was the only genotype that yielded high under all the conditions. WS 2016-12 and CNM 16-1 were tolerant to heat and drought stresses and high yielding. HINDI 62, HTW 11, and QBP 1606 were less sensitive to all the stresses but low yielding. Overall, out of 30 tolerant genotypes (10 of each category), 19 adapted to escape mechanism which is irrespective of their yielding level. The study demonstrated the potential of identified genotypes in wheat breeding for climate resilience and the traits imparting tolerance to these genotypes.