Improving Pearl Millet Drought Tolerance

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been identified for drought tolerance of grain yield in pearl millet (Yadav et al. 1999 and 2002). Marker-assisted selection (MAS) is being used to develop improved parental lines by introgression of QTLs into a homozygous inbred line background for the subsequent production of improved hybrids (marker-assisted back crossing), and by transforming them into topcross pollinator populations that are more heterogeneous than inbred lines. Until – and unless – it is clearly demonstrated that the incorporation of these QTLs into elite breeding lines will significantly enhance the performance of cultivars based on those lines, the benefits of these QTLs are unlikely to ever reach farmers ’ fields. Three topcross pollinator populations (TCPs) were developed by selecting and inter-mating individual genotype