Sep 2011
IMOD
Innovate Grow Prosper
Inclusive Market Oriented Development
Increasing productivity to help end hunger
Research Program
Dryland Cereals
Germplasm characterization
Research areas
• Strategic research on tolerance to drought, flowering-period, high temperatures, soil salinity and
poor fertility, and development of high throughput screening methods
• Screening of germplasm reference collections for drought adaptation, salinity tolerance, nutrient
deficiency traits, disease and insect resistance, and flowering/photoperiodism towards trait-based
germplasm catalogs
Outputs
• Reference germplasm collections assembled in sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet to enhance
use of germplasm in breeding programs
• More than 50 disease resistant sorghum and pearl millet accessions identified
• Protocols for drought tolerance screening in pearl millet and sorghum, and screening for aphid
tolerance developed for sorghum in South Asia (SA)
Tools to support genetic
enhancement
Research areas
• Crop simulation modelling to anticipate/predict trait effects
on yield
• Development of markers, mapping populations and maps
• Bio-informatics, computational biology and biometrics
platforms
Genetic Enhancement
Research areas
• Trait mapping and introgression for drought adaptation,
nutrient deficiency tolerance, pest (insects and parasitic
weeds), and disease resistance
• Breeding hybrid parents in Asia and Eastern and Southern
Africa (ESA) with primary emphasis on high yield (grain
and stover) and disease resistance (downy mildew and
blast) - in WCA, current emphasis on open pollinated
varieties (OPVs), with resistance to downy mildew (DM),
head miner and Striga for pearl millet.
• Integration of marker-assisted breeding into pearl millet
improvement, especially for complex traits (eg, Striga
• Diverse sources or resistance to DM and blast; high Fe and Zn content; and tolerance to drought,
high temperatures and soil salinity in elite genetic backgrounds identified in pearl millet
• Superior hybrid parents with tolerance to shoot-fly, aphids, charcoal rot and terminal drought in
sorghum in SA, using integrated conventional and molecular breeding
• Trait based B- and R-gene pools in sorghum in SA
• Stable and adaptable cultivars for further evaluation and release in ESA countries
Fuel – Feed – Food – New Uses
Research areas
• Screening and mapping of fodder traits in breeding material and populations
• Breeding multipurpose cultivars
• Breeding for processing traits with improved bioavailability of Fe and Zn
• Developing new products from dryland cereals
Outputs
• Near Infra Red Spectroscopy (NIRS) protocols for analysis of stover quality in the advanced
breeding lines of sorghum in SA
• Developed and mapped markers for stover quality QTLs in pearl millet
• Developed diversified products to suit market and consumer preferences in pearl millet and
sorghum
• Novel low lignin conferring brown midrib, high biomass lines of sorghum in SA
• Dual purpose varieties and hybrid parents for grain yield and stalk sugar yield in sorghum in SA
• Quantification of bioproduct (ethanol, pentose, xylan, hydrogen, etc) recovery from advanced
breeding material
Outputs
• Identification of marker-trait associations in cultivar improvement/development
• Protocols for rapid and cost effective screening of grain minerals for sorghum and pearl millet
resistance, DM resistance, drought and salinity tolerance, phosphorous deficiency, and grain iron
(Fe) and zinc (Zn) density).
• Development of high-yielding hybrid parents and hybrids with high levels of grain Fe and Zn density.
• Integration of marker-assisted selection in sorghum improvement (drought through staygreen
introgression, shoot-fly, phosphorus deficiency)
• Developing methodology for efficient recurrent selection procedures for sorghum
• Development of farmer-preferred hybrids in West and Central Africa (WCA)
• Multi-environment Testing (MET) to determine yield stability and adaptability of improved cultivars
for identified agro-ecological zones in ESA
Outputs
• Validated marker-trait associations for drought adaptation in sorghum and pearl millet, and for
shoot-fly and Striga resistance in sorghum
• Developed and mapped markers linked to quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for drought, downy mildew,
blast and rust resistance, and grain Fe and Zn density
• One hundred and twenty improved cultivars of pearl millet released (mostly hybrids in Asia and only
OPVs in Africa), with 60-70% of hybrids cultivated in India based on ICRISAT-bred lines
• First marker-assisted breeding product (an early maturing hybrid, HHB 67 Improved, with downy
mildew resistance) developed and adopted on more than 500,000 ha
Technology Transfer
Research areas
• Develop and test alternative seed delivery models
and assess the efficiency and effectiveness of Seed
Systems
• Hybrid parents consortium
Outputs
• Web based information repository on the characteristics
of improved hybrid parents of sorghum in SA
• Knowledge by smallholder farmers (including women) of better crop management technologies
of sorghum
• Knowledge by farmers, field staff, technicians and other staff of State Agriculture Universities,
non-governmental organizations and national agricultural research systems of hybrid parents
development and multiplication of sorghum in SA
• Materials and information for enhanced uptake by public and private sector partners
• Post-harvest technologies
• Commercial and pipeline cultivars for processing and value addition of sorghum
• Alternative seed delivery models for improved farmers’ access to quality seed.