About the Crop

            Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) is one among the minor millets and is a member of the family Poaceae. The crop is native to India and is cultivated for its small sized grain on marginal lands of Asia and Africa. It is a short duration, annual, tetraploid (2n = 4x = 36) crop of semi-arid and sub-tropical climate. The crop is loaded with nutrients and thrives exceptionally well under challenging environmental conditions like drought, soil salinity and even high temperature.This nutritionally rich millet is a low maintenance cereal that holds potential benefits for human health at minimal cost, thus ensuring dual advantage to mankind.

About

NUTRITIONAL GENOMICS LABORATORY

             The nutritional-genomics laboratory lead by Dr. Girish Chandel, Vice-Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur is worldwide known for pioneer work in nutritional and millet genomics. The laboratorymainly focuses on unraveling the molecular architecture of nutrient uptake and assimilation in rice, millets and other crops to solve theproblem of malnutrition through nutritional genomics route.


  • • Biofortification
    • Transgenic and transgenesis breeding
    • Enzyme production

  • 1. Release of nutri-rich varieties-
        • India’s first high zinc (Zn) rice variety- CGZR-1
        • State’s first high protein rice variety - Protezin
        • State’s first sugar balanced rice variety - Chhattisgarh Madhuraj Dhan-55
    2. Gene discoveries-
        • Discovery of 10 metal homeostasis related genes in minor millets.
        • Discovery of new alleles of 6 metal homeostasis related genes in 10 unique rice germplasm.
    3. Developed marker free Bt. transgenic rice
    4. Tobacco ready plants of EfNAS2and SiNAS2 genes for rice transgenic research.
    5. Developed and ready for delivery of technology for mass production of cellulose degrading enzymesCel6A and Cel7A