Juan I. Di Salvo, who, as a graduate student at Iowa State University,
participated in NAMA Millets Webinars in 2023 and 2025, let us know about
his recent article publication:
Di Salvo JI, Joshi S, Hadadi M, Jubery T, Sarkar S, Singh A,
Ganapathysubramanian B, Archontoulis S, Krishnamurthy A and Singh AK (2026)
"Phenological growth stages of Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.)) using
3-D phenotyping with relevance to breeding applications." Frontiers in
Plant Science. 17:1747707. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2026.1747707
It is based on the second chapter of his master's thesis on phenological
stages of finger millet. This is an important contribution to understanding
finger millet growth stages, and to the application of 3D visualization in
plant breeding work.
Juan has accepted a position as a breeder assistant with GDM in
Argentina. We wish him and his family well, and look forward to possible
future collaboration.
ABSTRACT:
"Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) is a small seeded cereal
known for its health benefits and its ability to grow in water-limited and
saline environments. Despite its health and adaptation advantages, there is
no standardized BBCH scale developed for finger millet, precluding
standardization of a defined growth and development scale. The initial step
in any breeding program and related research, is the precise, consistent
and standardized description of crop growth stages. Therefore, we present a
standardized phenological scale to describe and compare different stages of
growth and development. In this study, we used four-finger millet
accessions from the U.S.D.A. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS)
collection. Using a standardized BBCH chart as the baseline, we describe
nine main stages of development to provide a simplified and user-friendly
phenological growth staging scale for finger millet. A novel feature of
this study was the use of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) to generate
three-dimensional (3-D) renderings that align growth stages with 3-D
imaging, paving the way for future phenological staging studies to
incorporate 3-D visualization as a tool for standardization, researcher
training, and reduction of observer bias across environments."
Don Osborn, PhD
(East Lansing, MI, US - +1 202-621-3911)
North American Millets Alliance
