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Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) a native of Chhattisgarh, belongs to the minor millet group and is primarily known as a climate-resilient and nutritionally rich crop. However, due to the lack of enough Omic studies on the crop, the scientific community has largely remained unaware of the potential of this crop, resulting in less scope for its utilization in crop improvement programs. Looking at global warming, erratic climate change, nutritional security, and limited genetic information available, the Little Millet Transcriptome Database (LMTdb) (https://igkv.ac.in/xenom/index.aspx) was conceptualized upon completion of the transcriptome sequencing of little millet with the aim of deciphering the genetic signatures of this largely unknown crop. The database was developed with the view of providing information about the most comprehensive part of the genome, the 'Transcriptome'. The database includes transcriptome sequence information, functional annotation, microsatellite markers, DEGs, and pathway information. The database is a freely available resource that provides breeders and scientists a portal to search, browse, and query data to facilitate functional and applied Omic studies in millet crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is unusually increasing the earth temperature over the past century at an average rate of 0.07°C per decade since 1880. The increased temperature exhibit greater impact on grain yield, approximately 5.18 million tons of rice yields due to heat wave. Heat shock factors (HSF) has major role in regulating heat shock proteins which in turn responsible for survival of plants in heat stress by refolding proteins, maintaining functional confirmation, aiding in host defence mechanism. The aim of this research was to analyse phenological, biochemical changes and key genes highly expressed during heat stress at flowering stage in rice. Expression analysis of nine HSF genes had given a differential expression under heat stress as compared to controlled traits. This study suggested OsHSP26.7 as most responsive gene under heat stress and rice line 159, RRF-127, GP-145-103 and Annada with heat tolerant adaptive mechanisms and better performance under high temperatures and was found to be in correlation with the estimated biochemical traits. This can be taken as a base for heat tolerance response of the crop, which may be useful for further validation studies of the candidate genes for heat tolerance in the rice as well as other crop plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought stress is one of the abiotic stresses which may alter plant growth, metabolism and yield. Water stress limits the growth, productivity and quality of agricultural crops in the world. Water Stress is not only due to the scarcity of water but also due other factors such as salinity, high temperatures and severe cold that make plants not able to absorb enough water from soil to grow well and this is called physiological drought that leads to a series of disorders in physiological and biochemical processes. Millets are resilient to extreme environmental conditions especially to inadequate moisture and are rich in nutrients. The aim of this research was to analyze the effects of water stress on relative water content, proline, soluble carbohydrates and chlorophyll content of minor millet genotypes under control conditions. The photosynthetic pigments like chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and total chlorophyll decreased and the biochemical components like, proline, leaf protein and carbohydrate increased under water stress. In this study little millet genotypes showed minimum decrease in chlorophyll content and maximum increase in proline, protein and carbohydrate content when compared to the previously reported tolerant millet genotype. This study suggested the little millet (Panicum sumatrense) genotype RLM 37 having drought tolerant adaptive mechanism and better performance under water stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The improvement of grain quality, such as Zn/Fe and grain protein content has been a major concern of rice breeders. In the present study, grain zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) and protein contents were analyzed in 60 F7 Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) derived from Swarna × Moroberekan cross to detect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and their interactions. The analysisi of 20 polymorphic SSR markers showed 4 QTLs on chromosomes 1, 10, 6, significantly linked to iron and protein. Results revealed that QTL's for grain protein content (qgpc-1) on chromosome 6 and (qgpc-2) and (qgpc-3) on chromosome 10 and one QTL's for Fe content in rice grain are identified (qFe1.1) on chromosome 1. Three markers were associated to Zn content in rice grain on chromosome 2,3 and11. The flanking markers for grain zinc and protein content can be further used in maker assisted selection for advanced breeding line in biofortification programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little millet ( Panicum sumatrense ) a native of Chhattisgarh, belongs to the minor millet group and is primarily known as a climate-resilient and nutritionally rich crop. However, due to the lack of enough Omic studies on the crop, the scientific community has largely remained unaware of the potential of this crop, resulting in less scope for its utilization in crop improvement programs. Looking at global warming, erratic climate change, nutritional security, and limited genetic information available, the Little Millet Transcriptome Database (LMT db ) (https://igkv.ac.in/xenom/index.aspx) was conceptualized upon completion of the transcriptome sequencing of little millet with the aim of deciphering the genetic signatures of this largely unknown crop. The database was developed with the view of providing information about the most comprehensive part of the genome, the 'Transcriptome'. The database includes transcriptome sequence information, functional annotation, microsatellite markers, DEGs, and pathway information. The database is a freely available resource that provides breeders and scientists a portal to search, browse, and query data to facilitate functional and applied Omic studies in millet crops., Competing Interests: Authors MD and ArP are employed by VNR Seeds Private Limited at present and were Ph.D. students at the Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, IGKVV during the course of study. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Shekhar, Prasad, Banjare, Kaushik, Mannade, Dubey, Patil, Premi, Vishwakarma, Sao, Saxena, Dubey and Chandel.)