Vadodara: Nearly a decade and a half after it was first cultivated, a popular pearl millet hybrid has made a comeback in an improved avatar in Gujarat.
Dubbed “Maru Sona” or desert gold, the new version is equipped with the genes to ward off the devastating disease of downy mildew (DM). It has been allowed to be grown in Gujarat.
Improved the duration of life of this popular hybrid.
ICRISAT partnered with Dr. KD Mungra at Junagadh Agricultural University (JAU) Jamnagar Millet Research Station and ICAR-All India Coordinated Pearl Millet Research Program.
“Maru Sona is the first hybrid cultivar from Gujarat developed through genomics-assisted selection,” Srivastava, senior scientist at ICRISAT, told TOI.
The original hybrid – GHB 538 – was first bred in 2006-07 during the rainy, post-rainy and summer seasons in the dry regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana. It quickly became popular.
But like all single-cross hybrids that are defeated by DM within five years of release, GHB 538 also began to show signs of susceptibility, justifying the need for improvement.
The ICRISAT research team introgressed the male parent of GHB 538 with three DM resistance QTLs (DNA region) from three linkage groups (LG) to create Maru Sona.
“In this era of falling sequencing costs, high-throughput precision phenotyping platforms, big data, machine learning and AI, translational genomics has become one of the most powerful tools for breeding next-generation climate-smart cultivars,” Srivastava said.
“Genomics-assisted breeding is the way forward for the development of pearl millet cultivars to benefit poor farmers,” said JAU-Jamnagar researcher Dr. Mungra. “We look forward to more such collaborations in pearl millet and other crops within ICRISAT’s mandate,” said JAU Vice Chancellor Dr. Narendra Gontia.
“As climate change threatens yields, we must deploy all available resources to improve crops,” said Dr. Arvind Kumar, Deputy Director General of Research at ICRISAT.
Dubbed “Maru Sona” or desert gold, the new version is equipped with the genes to ward off the devastating disease of downy mildew (DM). It has been allowed to be grown in Gujarat.
Improved the duration of life of this popular hybrid.
ICRISAT partnered with Dr. KD Mungra at Junagadh Agricultural University (JAU) Jamnagar Millet Research Station and ICAR-All India Coordinated Pearl Millet Research Program.
“Maru Sona is the first hybrid cultivar from Gujarat developed through genomics-assisted selection,” Srivastava, senior scientist at ICRISAT, told TOI.
The original hybrid – GHB 538 – was first bred in 2006-07 during the rainy, post-rainy and summer seasons in the dry regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana. It quickly became popular.
But like all single-cross hybrids that are defeated by DM within five years of release, GHB 538 also began to show signs of susceptibility, justifying the need for improvement.
The ICRISAT research team introgressed the male parent of GHB 538 with three DM resistance QTLs (DNA region) from three linkage groups (LG) to create Maru Sona.
“In this era of falling sequencing costs, high-throughput precision phenotyping platforms, big data, machine learning and AI, translational genomics has become one of the most powerful tools for breeding next-generation climate-smart cultivars,” Srivastava said.
“Genomics-assisted breeding is the way forward for the development of pearl millet cultivars to benefit poor farmers,” said JAU-Jamnagar researcher Dr. Mungra. “We look forward to more such collaborations in pearl millet and other crops within ICRISAT’s mandate,” said JAU Vice Chancellor Dr. Narendra Gontia.
“As climate change threatens yields, we must deploy all available resources to improve crops,” said Dr. Arvind Kumar, Deputy Director General of Research at ICRISAT.