Foxtail millet [Setaria italica (L.) Beauv] is an ancient cereal crop that has been cultivated for grain food and forage consumption globally for over 11 500 years. Despite its long history, foxtail millet continues to be extensively cultivated in developing and underdeveloped countries with low productivity conditions. This is primarily due to its exceptional ability to tolerate drought and barren environments, making it well‐suited for grain production in challenging grown conditions. In the last century, significant progress has been made in enhancing the plant architecture of major cereal crops, such as maize (Zea mays) and rice (Oryza sativa), resulting in substantial increases in grain yield potential (Tian et al., 2024). However, there has been relatively less emphasis on optimizing the plant architecture of foxtail millet, leading to limited improvements in yield for this ancient crop species to date. While the overexpression of Drooping Leaf 1 has been shown to promote more upright leaves in foxtail millet (Zhao et al., 2020), compact architecture with reduced leaf angle remains a challenge due to the scarcity of identified germplasm suitable for this purpose.
Plant Biotechnology Journal.2025 Jun;23(6):2400-2402.IF=10.5