Tef Physiology

Tef and most other orphan crops particularly millets are resilient to marginal environments in which they are extensively cultivated (Tadele, 2016). Compared to most other cereals, tef is relatively tolerant to abiotic and biotic stresses. However, they suffer from low productivity (Tadele, 2019). Crop productivity can be enhanced through intensification (Tadele, 2017).
In general, little is known on the mechanisms of tolerance of tef to abiotic stresses in particular as this pertains to the physiology aspects. Physiological studies on tef will benefit from recent omics on tef. For instance, the whole genome sequence of tef (Cannarozzi et al., 2014; VanBuren et al., 2020) and related Eragrostis species with desirable properties (Pardo et al., 2020; Carballo et al., 2019) can be used to relate physiologically important traits to genes and genomic regions. Similarly, the recent proteomic study from drought affected tef plants (Kamies et al., 2017) and miRNAs from moisture limited tef plants (Martinelli et al., 2018) provide valuable findings. The recent completion of the genome sequence of extremely drought tolerant or resurrection E. nindensis (Pardo et al., 2020) and lodging tolerant E. curvula (Carballo et al., 2019) will play key role in advancing our knowledge on tef. Future research on tef improvement requires strong partnership among stakeholders which include donors, policy makers, research institutions, and farmers (Cannarozzi et al., 2018a).