Nutritional Perspective of Untapped Indigenous Finger Millet [Eleusine Coracana (L.) Gaertn.] Accessions in Millet Hotspot of Eastern Ghats, India

Climate change and human influence aggravate threats to balanced ecosystem, declining performance of major food crops. Finger millet (Eleusine coracana), a vital millet crop stands as a climate resilient smart crop for future. The present investigation establishes towering nutrient assemblage in 10 under-identified indigenous accessions collected from blocks of Malkangiri district located in Eastern Ghats, Odisha, India and compared with 2 improved varieties KMR-204 and Arjuna for Ca,Fe,Zn,Mg,K,Mn,P & Cu by ICP-OES. Most of the accessions have multi-fold higher nutrient contents as compared to the best studied crops declared by Food Data Central, US Department of Agriculture. The nutrient diversity confirms two major clusters at 0% phenon-level and two subclusters at 90% phenon-level. Accessions in cluster-I (Acc-3,7 and KMR-204) signifies extremely high Zn content, whereas subcluster-IIB (Acc-1,2,8,9 and Arjuna) for dehydration tolerance. These indigenous accessions collected in two subsequent years are testimony of conserved nutritional package in undisturbed ecosystem of Eastern Ghats in Malkangiri district, Odisha, India and can be utilized for crop improvement and sustainable agriculture for future.