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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Author Spotlight: Innovative Approaches to Understanding Plant Structure-Function Relationships for Climate-Resilient Crops

Author Spotlight: Innovative Approaches to Understanding Plant Structure-Function Relationships for Climate-Resilient Crops

Published on: July 12, 2024

Leveraging millets for developing climate resilient agriculture.

McKena Lipham Wilson¹, Robert VanBuren²

¹Department of Horticulture, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

Current Opinion in Biotechnology

|January 18, 2022

Summary

Millets, unlike other cereals, retain natural stress tolerance due to their domestication history. These resilient grains offer superior nutrition and adaptability, crucial for future climate-resilient agriculture and global food security.

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Area of Science:

Agricultural Science
Plant Biology
Genetics

Background:

C4 grasses exhibit remarkable resilience to environmental extremes, a trait often lost in domesticated cereals.
Millets, domesticated in semi-arid regions, uniquely retained stress tolerance and adaptability.
Intensive selection in major cereals prioritized yield over stress resilience.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the evolutionary and domestication history of millets.
To highlight traits contributing to millet's stress tolerance, adaptability, and nutritional value.
To explore the potential of millets in developing future climate-resilient and nutritious cereals.

Main Methods:

Literature review of millet evolutionary and domestication history.
Analysis of traits conferring stress tolerance and broad adaptability in millets.
Discussion of genome editing and advanced breeding techniques.

Main Results:

Millets possess inherent stress tolerance and broad adaptability due to their unique domestication.
They offer superior nutritional qualities compared to other major cereals.
Genome editing and advanced breeding can enhance these traits for future crop development.

Conclusions:

Millets are vital for developing climate-resilient and nutritious cereals.
They can play a central role in addressing global food insecurity.
Empowering researchers and utilizing germplasm from the Global South is key to leveraging millet potential.