Development of High Yielding, Early Maturing Grain Amaranth

Leaf vegetable of Amaranthus form a major part of the diet in Sub-Sahara Africa. The two popular cultivars are black and pale seeded. Globally, the seed of Amaranth is considered very important for confectioneries, biscuits, pastry because of the high content of protein. However, production and utilization of pale seeded (Grain) Amaranth is limited. It remains underutilized and has been unable to gain commercial recognition despite its immense nutritional qualities and economic potentials. Therefore, an urgent need to improve the production levels of the Amaranth for leafs and seed. Amaranth grain seed was selected from advanced population derived from Breeding NHAMARI. DNA extraction was carried out using SDS extraction protocol. Dried lead protocol was modified to obtain good quality of DNA. The quality was analyzed subjecting the DNA to Agorose gel electrophoresis. The amplified fragments were sequenced using a Genetic Analyzer 3130xl sequencer from Applied Biosystems using manufacturers’ manual while the sequencing kit used was that of BigDye terminator v3.1 cycle sequencing kit. Bio- Edit software and MEGA X were used for all genetic analysisThe performance of Amaranthus cream seed was excellent when tested in farmers’ field. The overall acceptability was 88.5 (in a 100 points scale). The leaf matures for the first leaf harvest in 10 days after transplanting on the field. The sequencing is used to identify and separate NHAMARI from Amaranthus cream seed. The phylogenetic tree separated the Amaranth into two groups.The new improved variety gave higher yield than the previous released NHAMOLA5 which is known as NHAMARI. The seed yield was 2.8t per hectare compared with 2.5t of NHAMARI