Millet improvement with novel breeding techniques, a crop of future–a review

Millets are one of the most highly nutritious crops compared to other staple foods. The yield of millet is decreasing day by day due to climate changes. The negligence of research in millet has led to these conditions. After the Green Revolution, the main area of research has been rice and wheat. For the improvement of millet, various biotechnological approaches have been used for crop improvement and are yet to be used and applied in crop improvement. This review paper deals with various approaches for the improvement of millet plants, such as giving different seed treatments, Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation, and different approaches for molecular breeding like marker-assisted selection (MAS), marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABC), marker-assisted gene pyramiding (MAGP), marker-assisted recurrent selection, and genomic selection. Also, the use of mycorrhization for biomass enhancement and the use of primary and secondary metabolites for crop enhancement have been explained. This paper also lists different genetic data available for the improvement of the millet crop. The approaches listed in this paper can help to decrease the differences between millets and other crops used as staple foods by improving them according to changing environmental and climatic conditions.