Finger millet- An amazing super cereal and salinity

Dr.Sneha Chaudhary M.Sc.Ph.D.(Botany),Dr.Kaushal Kumar M.Sc.Ph.D.(Botany), Presently engaged in research of stress phyvsiology and Dr.Malvika Srivastava is Professor in Department of Botany, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur 273009 U.P.INDIA.Trust area of research are abiotic stress,biological nitrogen fixation, enzymology and plant metabolism.

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) a staple food crop is well known as a super cereal for its excellent nutritional value, long term storage potential, and ethnomedicinal characteristics. Finger millet is nutritionally superior to rice and wheat and it provides cheap source of proteins, minerals, and vitamins to the rural population in soil having poor water holding capacity. Finger millet is especially valuable as it contains the amino acid methionine, which is lacking in the diets of hundreds of millions of the poor who live on starchy staples such as cassava, plantain, polished rice, or maize meal. Saline soil water inhibits plant growth by an osmotic effect, which reduces the ability of the plants to take up water by ion excess, which affects the plants. It was established that high salinity affects plants in several ways: water stress, ion toxicity, nutritional disorders, oxidative stress, alteration in the metabolic processes, membrane disorganization, reduction of cell division and expansion, genotoxicity. Together, these effects reduced plant growth development and survival.