Publications of NIPGR Scientists

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Author: search.filters.author.Muthamilarasan, MehanathanSubject: search.filters.subject.Climate-resilience

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    Genome sequencing efforts in minor millets: Current knowledge and emerging insights
    (Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2025) Singh, Roshan Kumar; Panchal, Anurag; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Prasad, Manoj
    Small millets (or minor millets) include finger millet (Eleusine coracana), foxtail millet (Setaria italica), proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), barnyard millet (Echinochloa crus-galli), kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum), little millet (Panicum sumatrense), teff (Eragrostis tef), fonio (Digitaria exilis), job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi), guinea millet (Brachiaria deflexa), and browntop millet (Urochloa ramosa). These millets are highly nutritious and climate-resilient but marginally cultivated for the production and consumption of particular communities. Though called “poor men’s crops,” minor millets possess the potential to ensure food and nutritional security amid the threat of global climate change. Thus, scope exists to improve the agronomic traits of these minor millets for commercial cultivation; however, lack of genomic resources remains a bottleneck to this advancement. Genome sequencing not only provides an opportunity to decode the genes encoded by the genome, but also provides avenue for the development of genomic resources. The success of genome sequencing for resource development and further implementation of these resources have been proven in other crop plants. Among minor millets, genomes of a few species have been sequenced, including finger millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, barnyard millet, teff, fonio, and job’s tears. However, the genomes of kodo millet, little millet, guinea millet, and browntop millet remains to be sequenced. In this context, the chapter summarizes the outcomes of sequencing efforts and the application of genome sequence information in accelerating genomics studies in minor millets. The chapter also enumerates the status of transcriptome sequencing and its application in dissecting the genes underlying important traits.
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    Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.): a model for small millets
    (Elsevier B.V., 2023) Pramitha, Lydia; Choudhary, Pooja; Rana, Sumi; Singh, Roshan Kumar; Das, Pronomita; Sharma, Shriya; Ravikesavan, R; Prasad, Manoj; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan
    Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is a small millet predominantly cultivated in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. India is the second-largest producer of foxtail millet, next to China, and the crop has importance in the history and civilization of the human race in these two countries. Although the foxtail millet was widely cultivated in the ancient era, it has lost its importance with time and became a marginally grown crop catering to the nutritional requirements of a limited population. Despite this, the crop has excellent yield contributing to agronomic traits along with climate-resilient characteristics. Being a C4 panicoid species with a small diploid genome, short lifecycle, in-breeding nature, and close relationship with biofuel grasses, foxtail millet has recently been considered as a C4 model crop to understand several agronomically important traits, including stress tolerance. Given the importance, the genome sequence of foxtail millet and green foxtail (S. viridis) is now available. The postgenome era has seen several crop studies, which provided extensive genetic and genomic resources for crop improvement. Studies including genetic and genomic dissection of nutritional traits, response to biotic and abiotic stresses, water-use and nitrogen-use efficiencies, biofuel traits, and deciphering the photosynthetic machinery have provided insights into the novel genes and pathways underlying the individual traits. This has also provided a roadmap for deploying similar studies in other millets using foxtail millet as a model. In this context, the chapter describes the botany, nutritional significance, global distribution, and production technologies being implemented in foxtail millet cultivation. The chapter also summarizes the outcomes of the studies being pursued to decode complex traits and provide a roadmap for executing similar work in other millet crops.