Lost Crops of Africa Volume I: Grains (1996) / Chapter Skim
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6 Pearl Millet: Commercial Types
6 Pearl Millet: Commercial Types
Pages 111-126
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From page 111... ...
Department of Agriculture trials, beef cattle, young pigs, and poultry fed pearl millet grain have grown as well as (or better than) those eating maize (see box)
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From page 112... ...
All in all, then, this plant's adaptability to both good and bad conditions makes it a potentially outstanding food crop for vast areas of a "greenhouse-afflicted" world where climates may change wildly from decade to decade or even from year to year, and where more and more people must obtain food from hot, dry soils. The chances for boosting pearl millet's productivity and usefulness are good, but the improvements may not come rapidly.
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From page 113... ...
This was the situation of Mexico's wheats before the l950s when genes from Japanese dwarf varieties helped create short, strongstemmed plants that could hold their heavy heads up during lashing winds and pounding storms. Strengthening the plant's architecture allowed fertilizer to work to the fullest benefit and was a prime component of the wheats that generated the Green Revolution.
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From page 114... ...
This was an important discovery because although maize is the Southeast's main poultry feed, it grows poorly there and the local poultry industry has to import maize from the Midwestern states. Some observers now conclude that as transportation costs increase, locally grown pearl millet could soon replace the imported maize as the poultry feed of choice.
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From page 115... ...
hybrid pearl millets have been created. At about 1 m tall, they are half the normal height and can be harvested by combine.
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From page 116... ...
The global value of such precocious pearl millets could be substantial. TROPICAL TYPES Although pearl millet is the quintessential dryland cereal, it is also found in some of Africa's wet and humid tropical zones.
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From page 117... ...
Yet it is reminiscent of the situation with maize a century or so ago. At that time the practice of eating maize grain in the soft, sweet, doughy stage was known only to a few Indian children and perhaps some adventurous farmers.7 Today, "sweet corn" is a major food of North America, and a huge research effort has been expended on selecting strains whose grains convert sugar to starch only slowly so that they stay sweet.
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From page 118... ...
Indeed, varieties with large, spherical, uniform, hard kernels that produce high milling yields already exist, but have not been documented systematically or brought into large-scale commercial production. When pearl millets are processed into food products, there will be a need for larger supplies of more uniform grain with desirable milling properties and acceptable flavor, color, and keeping properties.
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From page 119... ...
In Africa (as well as in India) , the major pearl millet foods are unfermented bread, fermented breads, thick and thin porridges, steam-cooked products, beverages, and snacks.
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From page 120... ...
in India have developed a strategy to keep pearl millet hybrids going indefinitely, even when new diseases arise or conditions change.~' Normally, hybrids are developed using two inbred parents of known and uniform qualities. ICRISAT's strategy is to replace one parent with an open-pollinated variety of broad genetic background.
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From page 121... ...
The useful characteristics they can confer include disease- and insect resistance, genes for fertility restoration of the A, cytoplasm, cytoplasmic diversity, high yield under adverse conditions, apomixis, early maturity, and many inflorescence and plant morphological characteristics. Among other possibly useful wild species are Pennisetum squamulatum, Pennisetum orientate, Pennisetum faccidum, and Pennisetum setaceum.
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From page 122... ...
· Its chromosomes are large and easy to count. · The plants resulting from cross-pollinations usually grow with pronounced hybrid vigor, so that the genetic interactions are clear.
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From page 123... ...
Indeed, in this way pearl millet's genes have the potential to revolutionize food production around the world. ~ This work has been performed by Wayne Hanna at the Coastal Plain Experimental Station in Tifton, Georgia.
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From page 124... ...
The new hybrids yield 30-40 percent more dry matter but also 20-40 percent (9 percent versus 11 - 1 3 percent) more protein than the forms presently cultivated by local farmers.
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From page 125... ...
can be regenerated into whole plants. Although it is not yet possible to regenerate protoplasts in pearl millet, it is possible to regenerate suspension cultures (including those of pearl millet x napier grass hybrids)
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