Relationship of grain iron and zinc content with grain yield in pearl millet hybrids

摘要

Development of pearl millet cultivars with high levels of grain iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) content can make significant contribution to reducing widespread deficiencies of these micronutrients in populations heavily dependent on staple cereals for theirdietary energy and nutritional requirements. It is imperative that breeding of such cultivars must not compromise on grain yield and farmer-preferred traits. Multi-location evaluation of two sets of hybrids with differing genetic composition showed thatFe and Zn contents had highly significant and high positive correlations in both sets of hybrids and in all environments, and they were not correlated with grain weight, implying simultaneous genetic improvement of both micronutrients in large-seeded background is likely to be effective. Both micronutrients had moderate to low negative correlations with grain yield in both sets of hybrids, although not always significant. Such associations might have resulted due to the involvement of iniadi germplasm as a common source of high Fe and Zn content in both male and female parents, thereby reducing the genetic diversity between the parental lines for traits associated with heterosis for grain yield. Whether this could also be due to natural negative association between genetic factors for these micronutrients on one hand and grain yield on the other merits further studies through selection experiments using genomic tools as the resolution of this issue has a direct bearing on breeding high-yielding hybrids with high levels of Fe and Zn content in pearl millet.