Growth, Yield and Grain Nutritional Quality in Three Brazilian Pearl Millets (Pennisetum americanum L.) with African or Indian origins

ABSTRACT In this study, we are presenting recommendations to the best agricultural use as well as for plant breeding of three millet cultivars namely ENA1 and ENA2, which have African origin, and BRS1501 originally from India. These cultivars were evaluated for growth, yield and grain quality traits. The morphological traits evaluated in this study indicated that the African genotypes ENA1 and ENA2 are better than the Indian genotype BRS1501 for no-till farming or to produce forage with 15% of crude protein at flowering and at harvest to produce stover (around 7% of crude protein content) for livestock feeding. The BRS1501 cultivar exhibited the highest values for total crude protein, albumins and prolamins, phytate and mineral contents in grains. ENA1 and ENA2 exhibited the highest values of globulin and glutelin contents. The electrophoretic patterns for storage proteins were similar across the three millets cultivars, except for a higher intensity of two glutelin bands with 21 and 24 kDa in BRS1501. Together, the results allow us to recommend BRS1501 for grain production and ENA1 and ENA2 for biomass production