Development of pearl millet cultivars with
high levels of grain iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) content can
make significant contribution to reducing widespread
deficiencies of these micronutrients in populations heavily
dependent on staple cereals for their dietary energy and
nutritional requirements. It is imperative that breeding of
such cultivars must not compromise on grain yield and
farmer-preferred traits. Multi-location evaluation of two sets
of hybrids with differing genetic composition showed that
Fe and Zn contents had highly significant and high positive
correlations in both sets of hybrids and in all environments,
and they were not correlated with grain weight, implying
simultaneous genetic improvement of both micronutrients
in large-seeded background is likely to be effective. Both
micronutrients had moderate to low negative correlations
with grain yield in both sets of hybrids, although not always
significant. Such associations might have resulted due to
the involvement of inidia germplasm as a common“Source—
of high Fe and Zn content in both male and female parents,
thereby reducing the genetic diversity between the parental
lines for traits associated with heterosis for grain yield.
Whether this could also be due to natural negative
association between genetic factors for these micronutrients
on one hand and grain yield on the other merits further
studies through selection experiments using genomic tools
as the resolution of this issue has a direct bearing on breeding high-yielding hybrids with high levels of Fe and Zn content in pearl mille