ABSTRACT
Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) is the sixth most important cereal globally, and the fourth most important of the tropical cereals, after rice, maize, and sorghum. It is grown on approximately 26 million ha annually, 11 million each in south Asia and West Africa, and 2 million each in eastern/southern Africa and in Brazil (Bonamigo, 1999; Harinarayana et al., 1999; ICRISAT and FAO, 1996). It shares with barley (among the temperate cereals) a specific adaptation to the most marginal, driest, and least-fertile end of the spectrum of cereal-growing environments. Its main areas of cultivation are in lowfertility, light-textured soils, receiving less than 500-600 mm of rainfall, where sorghum and (especially) maize are subject to frequent crop failures (Harinarayana et al., 1999). It is primarily a crop of subsistence agriculture, both because of the limited resource base, and/or significant environmental constraints, of the environments in which it is grown. As a result of which, evolution has necessarily favored adaptation and survival over a high level of grain productivity in the crop.
