Proso millet is an important short-duration crop that adapts well to varied climatic conditions and is grown worldwide for food, feed and fodder purposes. Owing to a lack of genetic improvement, the crop has experienced no yield improvement and provides low income to farmers. In this study, 200 accessions of proso millet originating in 30 countries were evaluated in two rainy seasons to assess phenotypic diversity for morpho-agronomic and grain nutritional traits and to identify high grain-yielding and grain nutrient-rich accessions. Proso millet diversity was structured by geographical region, by country within region, and by racial group. Race patentissimum showed high diversity and ovatum low diversity, and diverged widely from each other. The lowest divergence was observed between races compactum and ovatum. Eighteen high grain-yielding, 10 large-seeded, and 26 two or more grain nutrients-rich accessions were identified, and highly diverse pairs of accessions within and between trait groups were identified. They included IPm 9 and IPm 2661 for high grain yield and large seed size; and IPm 2069, IPm 2076, and IPm 2537 for high Fe, Zn, Ca, and protein contents. IPm 2875 had a seed coat that is readily removed by threshing. This study provides valuable information to proso millet researchers about agronomic and nutritional traits in accessions that could be tested for regional adaption and yield for direct release as cultivars, and could be used in breeding for developing high grain-yielding and nutrient-rich cultivars.

The genebank at ICRISAT maintains 8020 accessions of sorghum from 16 West and Central African countries. Geographical gaps and diversity were assessed in the collection. Using the passport data of 3991 accessions for which georeferenced data were available, a total of 386 districts (gaps) located in 11 West and Central African countries were identified as geographical gaps. Burkina Faso with 140 and Nigeria with 118 districts were identified as countries with major geographical gaps. The collection of 43 accessions of wild species represented only three species belonging to Sorghum bicolor ssp. drummondii and ssp. verticilliflorum, S. hevisonii, and S. macrochaeta, highlighting the need for collection missions aimed exclusively at enriching the collection of wild relatives. Accessions having characterization data (7630) were used to assess diversity. The first three principal components contributed to >60% of variation. Maximum diversity was observed in the collection from Nigeria for both qualitative and quantitative traits. Mean values indicated significant differences between basic and intermediate races for the traits studied. Among the races, accessions of guinea-caudatum for qualitative traits and those of caudatum for quantitative traits were highly diverse. The low intensity of the sorghum collection and the many geographical gaps in the collection underline the importance of launching collection missions to fill the gaps, particularly in regions of predominantly guinea sorghums. Genotyping of possible duplicate accessions is needed to identify duplicates in the collection. It is suggested that all passport information including georeferenced data of collection sites should be collected when samples are collected in gaps.