Evaluation of Some Local and Exotic Pearl Millet- (Pennisetum glaucum L). - Genotypes for Yield and it’s Components

Abstract

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum L.) is a grain crop belongs to the family Poaceae (Graminceae). It is an annual crop, self pollinated and has chromosome number of 2n = 14. The term millet is broadly applied over 140 species belonging to the genus Pennisetum (Brunken et al., 1977 and Gill, 1991). Pearl millet is believed to be originated in West Africa (Jauhar, 1981 and Stoskopf, 1985). Today millet covers the food needs for more than 500 million people. Areas planted with millet are estimated was 15 million hectares annually in Africa and 14 million hectares in Asia. The global production exceeds 10 million tons per hectare (National Council, 1996 and ICRIST, 1987). It is planted as a crop across, a wide range of environments around the world. Pearl millet has been grown through the subtropical areas and is of great importance in the arid and semi-arid tropics in particular, where it is a staple diet for millions of peoples. The crop grows successfully under a rainfall varying from 50 to 1300 mm including drought stricken areas where soil fertility is low and the food supplies are dependent on rainfall (Gill, 1991 and Aglan, 1994). The grains of small pearl millet are comparatively in term of protein content is more than the other cereal grain crops. Its protein ranged between 11.3 – 19.06, and has a high quality food protein most of the amino acid except lysine (Fadlalla, 2002). Different traits in India have shown that pearl millet is nationally superior from human growth when compared to Maize due to this fact. In Sudan pearl millet commonly known (Elduphn, Soana) and comes the second after sorghum in cultivated areas and total production (A.O.D, 1992). Pearl millet is grown in two types of soils the goos and the gardod, they are both characterized by low fertility. Millet production in Sudan is weak compared to the international millet production. This is due primarily to the weakens of the traditional method used cultivate millet. In addition, lack of millet hybrids or cultivars characterized with high yield and adapted to Sudan environment were the most important problem facing millet production in Sudan. Investigation of wide range of variability among millet genotypes might be useful in improving millet production in Sudan as a method to select the most productive one is the way to improve millet production in Sudan. Comparative of some local and exotic cultivars of millet with respect to: 1- Determination of variability for different characters. 2- Estimation of heritability and genetic advance to find traits, which are highly heritable. 3- 2 To study the correlation between the different pair of characters.