Research proposal on black fonio (Digitaria iburua) in west Africa

1. Agromorphological and nutritional
Characterization of black fonio millet (Digitaria
iburua) accessions collected from Northern Nigeria
By: Majiok Koak Nyoac By: Majiok Koak Nyoach
By: Majiok Koak
Supervisors:
Dr Wosene Gebre
(PhD)
Prof. Happiness
Ogba Oselebe (PhD)
Prof. Nega Berhane
(PhD)

2. Outline of the presentation
Introduction
Statement of the problem
Objectives of the study
Significance of the study
Materials and methods
Work plan
Budget

3. 1. Background
 Fonio species belong to:
 Poaceae family,
sub-family of Panicoideae,
tribe of Paniceae and
the genus Digitaria.
 Two major species of fonio;
the white fonio (Digitaria exilis) (commonly called acha, fundi,
or hungry rice) and
the black fonio (Digitaria iburua) (commonly called iburu) (Zhu,
2020a). 2020a).

4. Intro…
 Other related species with agricultural significance include
Dsanguinalis sanguinalis (hairy crabgrass), Digitaria
compacta (rais-han), and Digitaria eriantha (pangola) (Zhu,
2020a).
 Digitaria species are generally C4 plants with digitate
inflorescences but rarely paniculate type is also observed
(Sagbadja, 2010). Fonio grains are extraordinary tiny (0.5-
1mm diameter, 0.75-2mm length) with 1,000 seeds
weighting 0.5-0.6g.

5. Intro…
 The caryopsis is tightly enclosed within two brown husks.
In D. iburua, the husks are intensively dark-brown; hence
it is commonly named black fonio in contrast to D. exilis
known as fonio or white fonio (Sagbadja, 2010).
 (Sagbadja, 2010) reported that the vernacular name
“fonio” or “fonyo” comes from Mande linguistic group
living in the middle Niger, area where the largest
landraces’ diversity of the crop occurs.

6. Intro…
Fonio is not only tolerant to drought but also a very fast
maturing crop. It is also nutritious because it is rich in
methionine and cystine, the two amino acids vital to human
health and deficient in major cereals such as wheat, rice and
maize (Tadele, 2007).
Fonio can well adapt to local pedo-climatic conditions and have
the ability to resists different environmental stresses and
contributes to the maintenance of the environment by ensuring
vegetal cover on ecologically sensitive and undervalued soils
(Sekloka et al., 2016a).

7. Intro…
 Fonio millets are among the important traditional cereal crops
that significantly contribute to household food security in
marginal areas of West-Africa (Sekloka et al., 2016a).
 It is commonly used as staple food especially during shortage
period due to its short time life cycle compared to other grains
like sorghum or rice (Ibrahim et al., 2020).

8. Intro…
 Fonio is well appreciated for its tasty and easily digestible
grains.
 For instance in many tribal areas of Guinea, Mali, Togo and
Nigeria, fonio can be consumed two to three times a day and is
preferred to other cereals (Sagbadja, 2010).
 Traditional uses of fonio include stiff porridge, thin porridge,
couscous, and alcoholic beverages (Zhu, 2020a)

9. Intro….
 Fonio is cultivated under a large range of environmental
conditions, from a tropical monsoon climate in western
Guinea to a hot, arid desert climate in the Sahel zone (Abrouk
et al., 2020a).
 Knowledge of the nutritional properties and food applications
of fonio is essential to support the development of the
breeding programs (Zhu, 2020a).

10. Intro…
 Fonio millets remain crops that show promise for agriculture in
less arable and arid regions of West-Africa, particularly during
the current and prospective climate change (Sagbadja, 2010).

11. Intro…
 Population growth, decline of rain and soil nutrient and limited
access to arable land worldwide, particularly in Sub-Saharan
Africa, make it mandatory to maintain and promote the
productivity of neglected traditional crops which have the
potential of overcoming different biotic and abiotic tresses
(Sagbadja, 2010).

12. Intro…
 Fonio millets can be one of the essential cereal crops for
solving the global food crisis in rapidly growing population
and changing climate due to its adaptability to different
climatic and marginal environmental conditions and its fast
maturing life cycle (Abrouk et al., 2020b).
 But despite all of these good qualities, fonio millets remain
the least studied among the cereal crops in general and millets
in particular and, in fact, they are ranked among the African
orphan crop that were not given enough attention (Sekloka et
al., 2016a).

13. Intro…
 Black Fonio (D. iburua) was reported to be limited to the Bauchi
and Jos of Nigeria along with other regions of the northern Benin
and Togo (Sadiq et al., 2015a).
 The crop is desired because of its nutritional benefits but unlike
white fonio, limited information are available on this crop and
that is why this study aim to characterize the agromorphological
and nutritional content of black fonio millet (Zhu, 2020a).

14.  As demand for food with efficient resistant to pest and
drought, having high nutritional content and good
yield is increasing globally and in particular; the sub-
Saharan African countries, there is a need to come up
with solution.
 According to (Sagbadja, 2010), fonio millets supply
food to several millions of people.

15. …
 However, despite its important role in household food
security; the crop is still on a primitive production level
and features many drawbacks, such as:
tiny seeds,
poor yield,
pests,
diseases,
plant lodging,
laborious farming practices and difficult seed processing (Sagbadja,
2010).

16.  Black fonio unlike white fonio which have a little abit more
scale cultivation in many West African Countries is poorly
known as far as its:
 morphological characters,
 agricultural performance,
 nutritional content
 genetic and molecular characterizations are concerned.

17.  Most of the researches put emphasis on the management of
fonio harvest and post-harvest.
 There is limited information available on varietal breeding, and
agromophology as well as nutritional analysis of this crop.
 Also there is variation of data generated by different researchers
on the nutritional contents or components of this crop.
 Nigeria stand at the top for local fonio production, but the black
fonio unlike white fonio is not at good and wider scale of
production and not well studied.

18.  General objective
 To characterize the Agromorphological and nutritional contents of
Black fonio millet (Digitaria iburua) accessions collected from
Northern Nigeria.
 Specific Objectives
 To assess phenotypic variability among Black fonio accessions
 To determine the nutritional compositions of black fonio millets
through biochemical analysis

19.  H1: Depending on the exploration of large sets of black fonio,
most of the accessions show good agromorphological traits.
 H2: Based on observing from seedling to maturation phase,
there is a variation between black fonio accessions collected
in different part of Northern Nigeria.
 H3: The nutritional analysis conducted on black fonio show
that black fonio content high and efficient nutrients.

20. What will be the beneficial outcome of this research?
Black fonio
Guideline
Breeders, in
identifying useful
landraces,
Food processing
industries
Increase the
interest and need
on black fonio
Agricultural
companies

21. Material and methods
 Description of the Study Area
 The experiment will be conducted in Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
University (ATBU), Bauchi state, northern part of Nigeria.
 The site is between latitude 10o 001 55.9” to 10o 011 02.4” N and
longitude 09o 461 55.3” to 09o 471 06.7” E.
 mean annual rainfall of the area is 1072mm, with higher total
annual potential evapotraspiration of 1200mm.
 The mean diurnal temperature varied between 13.1oC and
31.6oC.

22. 
 Forty one (41) black fonio accessions will be used to carried
out the research study. The genotype will be obtained from
GBioS, University of Abomey-calavi, Benin.
 Locations of collected genotypes:
 Kaduna
 Nasarawa
 Abuja, and
 Plateau
Northern Nigeria

23. Experimental design and management
 The field experiment will be conducted from 2021 2022,
 (Dry season) Supplementation of water through irrigation.
 The experiment design selected for this study is the Alpha
lattice design with treatments arrangement of 4*11.
 If the remaining three from the last block of alpha lattice design
will be not be obtained, then they will be considered as missing
plots.

24. B1P1 B1P2 B1P3 B1P4
B1P5
B2P6
B2P7
B2P8
B2P9 B2P10 B3P11 B3P12
B3P13
B3P14
B3P15
B4P16
B4P17 B4P18 B4P19 B4P20
B5P21
B5P22
B5P23
B5P24
B5P25 B5P26 B5P27 B5P28
B5P29
B6P30
B7P31
B7P32
B7P33 B7P34 B7P35 B8P40
B8P39
B8P38
B8P37
B8P36
P41
Design layout (4*11)
Rep 1 Rep 2 rep3
1m
1m
0.5 m
1m

25. Data collection
 Data collection will be conducted on;
vegetative,
flowering and
maturation phase
 This data will include both the qualitative and quantitative traits.
The data will be recorded following the biodiversity international
rice descriptors (Ibrahim et al., 2020).
 qualitative and quantitative data.docx

26. …
Preparation of sample for nutritional analysis
 The grain samples of black fonio will be washed with distilled
water and dried.
 Then the sample will be grinded into fine powder using mortar
and pestle.
 The nutritional analysis will be done using the fine powder.
 This will be stored in an air tight plastic container for analysis.

27. …
Nutritional and Biochemical Analysis
 The experiment for nutritional analysis of black fonio will be
conducted at ATBU, Northern Nigeria.
 The analysis will be done on powdered raw black fonio millets.

28. …
 Reagents preparation
 Reagents of different concentration will be prepared according to
protocol used by (Sadiq et al., 2015b) for analysis of:
 protein,
 carbohydrate,
 fat or lipid,
 crude fiber,
 Ash, moisture and energy contents of black fonio millets.
 Proximate composition which included percentage of, moisture, fat,
crude protein, fiber, ash etc. will be determined according to the
standard method of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists’
Approved Methods (AOAC) (Helrich, 1990).

29. …
Determination of protein content
 Protein-containing sample is digested using conc. H2SO4 in
the presence of Kjeldahl catalyst.
 Standard alkali will be added to digest the sample and the
ammonia produced will be steam distilled into a standard
solution of HCl.
 Titration of The acid gives an indication of the amount of
ammonia (NH3) distilled, and hence the nitrogen content
from which crude protein is calculated, procedures provided
by AOAC (Helrich, 1990).

30. …
 Determination of lipid or fat content
 The principle is based on the fact that lipophilic (non-polar)
constituent of a sample are readily extracted into organic
solvent.
 Determination of crude fat involves the continuous removal of
fat from the sample with solvent e.g. petroleum ether (B.P 40-
600C) in soxholer extractor (Helrich, 1990).

31. …
Determination of ash content
 The principle is based on the loss in weight which occurs after igniting
the sample in a muffle furnace at a temperature of about 6000C which
causes the organic matter to burn completely without affecting the ash
constituents.
 Then, the sample will be removed, cooled in a desiccator at room
temperature, and weighted (Helrich, 1990). Then the percentage will
be calculated using the below formula:

32. …
Determination of moisture contents
 The principle involved difference in weight prior to (before) and after
drying carry through 1000C constantly in 24 hours by following the
procedures provided by AOAC (Helrich, 1990).
Determination of crude fiber
 Any food material submitted for analysis of crude fiber and which
suspected to contain more than 1% fat is first rendered fat-free by
treatment with petroleum ether (B.P 40- 600C). The defatted sample is
treated with boiling H2SO4 and later with boiling NaOH, and the
residue left after the subtraction of the ash is taking as fiber (Helrich,
1990).

33. …
Determination of total carbohydrate content
 The total carbohydrate was determined by difference method in which
the percentages of crude protein, crude fiber, crude fiber, ash content
and moisture content will be subtracted from (Helrich, 1990).
Determination of mineral content of black fonio
 Mineral analysis, standard (AOAC, 2000) method will be used to digest
100 g of four samples.
 One hundred milliliter (100 ml) standard solutions will be prepared
from the digest and used for mineral analysis.
 The minerals (Ca, P, K, Fe, Cu, and Mg) will be determined using
standard analytical (Helrich, 1990).

34. Data analysis
 Morphological and nutritional data analysis
 Data for quantitative and qualitative characters will be subjected to analysis of
variance (ANOVA) using statistical analysis software. Pearson correlation, principal
component and clustering of genotypes will be carried out to assess the diversity
between genotypes for the traits measured.
 Nutritional and Physicochemical data will be analyzed to determine the effect of
each component.
 The differences between the treatments will be determined by analysis of variance
(ANOVA).
 Least significant difference (LSD) will be used to separate the means at 5%
probability level (P<0.05). However, all data will be analyzed using the general
model procedures of R programming software version 4.1.1 (2021-08-10).

35. Work plan
Year 2021 2022
Activities Months Months
Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar April
Papers review and proposal dev’t
Site selection and land preparation
Collection of accession and sowing
Data collection and follow up
Laboratory work and harvesting
Data analysis and interpretation
Report writing
Report presentation

36. Budget
No. Budget Description Total cost in Naira
1 Accessions and field preparation 50,000
2 Stationary 5000
3 Laboratory work and chemicals 100,000
4 Personnel cost 50,000
Overall total 205,000 Naira