Salient Achievements


  • AICRP on Small Millets maintains one of the largest collections of germplasm (15,861 accessions) up to 2012, including 8001 accessions of finger millet, 2766 of foxtail millet, 1538 in kodo millet, 939 in proso millet, 1629 in little millet and 988 in barnyard millet.
  • Till 2012, Twenty two varieties in different small millets- eight in finger millet, five each in kodo and proso millets, three in little millet and one in barnyard millet were evolved and released for cultivation in different regions of the country.
  • The package of practices for cultivation of different small millets has been developed for different regions of the country.
  • Remunerative cropping systems involving different pulse crops in millet for different regions have been evolved.
  • Management practices for aberrant weather conditions for mitigating early, mid and late season drought have been worked out.
  • Chemical measures to control diseases viz. blast in finger millet, head smut in kodo millet, rust and green ear in foxtail millet and grain smut in little and barnyard millets have been evolved.
  • Technology to mitigate the menace of shoot fly in little, barnyard, kodo and proso millets has been developed.
  • Technologies of value addition to small millets include: malted flour from finger millet, infant food, decorticated ragi, flakes from small millets, expanded ragi, ragi seed coat based foods, extruded foxtail millet, ready to eat snack(muesli) from flaked millets, health beverage from malted finger millet and entrel foods.