Omics-Based Approaches in Improving Drought Stress Tolerance in Pearl Millet

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br), a climate-resilient Nutri-cereal grown primarily in Africa and South Asia’s arid and semi-arid regions, is well adapted to adverse abiotic stresses such as drought and heat. Drought stress is an abiotic disaster that impacts yield and productivity globally. Plants have adapted pathways to survive under stress, but the advent of a new omics-based approach encompassing genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics is critical for developing tolerant varieties. Acknowledging plant responses at different organizational levels, such as growth, physiology, metabolites (metabolomics), proteins (proteomics), and genes (genomics), will enable us to devise strategies for designing drought-tolerant crops. Understanding crop responses, particularly at the “omics” level, will improve the quality and significance of the biological information deduced to develop stress-resistant cultivars. This chapter entails the latest information about how drought stress affects various traits involving growth, physiology, genes, proteins, and metabolites in pearl millet and how we can develop drought-resistant varieties using these omics-based approaches.