Vol. 9, Special Issue 2, Part H (2025)

Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] is a dual purpose climate resilient crop extensively cultivated in arid and semi-arid climatic regions of Africa and Asia. It can survive in dry and harsh climatic conditions due to its several climate-resilient features like C₄ anatomy, deep root system, growth in less fertile soil under water scarcity, less nutrient and irrigational requirements, adaptations to a wide range of ecological conditions. Pearl millet production has consistently increased over time and high-yielding disease-resistant cultivars have played a major role in this direction. But, due to variability in climatic patterns and erratic rainfall, its productivity has been highly affected since past many years which lead to requirement of selecting drought tolerant genotypes with better water use efficiency and survival in adverse conditions. Thus, it is necessary to develop drought/heat tolerant hybrids and varieties of pearl millet in the present context of changing climatic scenario. Here, we analyzed 19 pearl millet drought/heat tolerant lines suitable for A₁ zone using 15 drought/heat specific SSR primers. All the 15 SSRs amplified products of varying sizes ranging between 100-550 bp. A total of 35 alleles were obtained in this study and the number of alleles per locus varied between 2 to 3 with an average of 2.33 alleles. Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) values ranged from 0.38 to 0.73 with an average of 0.51. This study is anticipated to be useful for developing drought tolerant hybrids and varieties specifically for drought prone areas i.e. A₁ zone and ultimately increase productivity of pearl millet.