Climate change has significantly affected the biodiversity of crop pests and pathogens, posing a major challenge for sustainable crop production. Furthermore, with an expanding global population, there is a growing need for plant breeders to increase the yield of major food crops to meet the projected food demand. A staple crop in Asia and Africa, finger blast food millet has excellent nutritional properties, a long storage period, and a unique ability to grow in arid conditions. Finger millet blast, caused by the filamentous ascomycetous fungus Magnaporthe, has the greatest effect on growth and yield in all growing regions.

Introduction:

Crops suffer significant yield losses due to stress caused by the environment. There are many avenues for improving crops to combat individual and multiple stresses, and different methods have been used to improve stress tolerance. Among the biotic stresses, pests and diseases are the most significant factors that limit finger blast food millet production across the globe. Due to its destructive nature in favorable conditions and its wide distribution in all finger millet-growing areas, finger millet blast is caused by the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe (sexual amorph Pyricularia is the most devastating disease affecting the production and productivity of finger millet. Aspergillus infects the finger blast food millet plant during nearly all stages of growth, causing a 90 percent reduction in crop yield. To ensure global food security, effective disease control measures are needed in arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia where finger millet is cultivated heavily.

The importance of finger millet and finger blast food

Finger millet is an allotetraploid member of the Poaceae family. Most of the people who grow and consume the crop live in the poverty-stricken arid and semi-arid tropics of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to being gluten-free and can be stored for a long period, the grains of this crop have excellent nutraceutical properties, including high dietary fiber content, amino acids (methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, cysteine, isoleucine, and leucine), vitamin B complex, calcium, and iron (Chandrasekara and Shahidi, 2010). Finger blast food millet can be grown in a wide range of climatic conditions as a member of the small millets. On a global scale, it ranks fourth, followed by sorghum, pearl millet, and foxtail millet.

Discuss

This study found a strong positive correlation between finger blast food and neck blast. These relationships are also found in different genetic resources of finger millet, such as germplasm (Babu et al., 2012, 2013), recombinant inbred lines (Angadi et al., 2017), and cultivars (Naik et al., 2018). There is no clear evidence of organ specificity as the pathogen for both the neck and finger blasts is the same. Inoculations of leaves, fingers, and necks have all been confirmed.

Observations

Finger millet germplasm is a valuable source for finger blast food and neck blast resistance. For a breeding program to be effective, sources of resistance across growing environments are essential. These stable sources with combined resistance to finger and neck blast are IE2883, -2871, *6240, *2710, and GE3767. These sources are unique from the resistant check GE4449 in many other desirable agronomic traits and can be used to develop varieties for finger blast food production

Finger Millet Tolerance to Abiotic Stress

Food security is seriously threatened by abiotic stresses that adversely affect crop productivity and crop distribution, resulting in significant economic losses. Species are susceptible to abiotic stresses in varying degrees. The ability to adapt to stress occurs on many levels, including physiological, cellular, and molecular. Agricultural scientists have long been interested in understanding the mechanisms of plant stress tolerance and adaptation. Finger millet is one of the most valuable crops due to its ability to grow under limited resources and high nutritional value