Indian J. Genet., 72(1): 25-30 (2012) Abstract Pearl millet is valued for both grain and stover in crop- livestock production system in the drought-prone arid and semi-arid regions of north-western India. In this work the performance of contemporary hybrids and composites of pearl millet were compared for grain and stover yields in drier zone of these regions. A total of 142 hybrids and 84 composites were evaluated in a combination of 94 environments from 1998 to 2009 in the stales of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana. Mean yield in test locations ranged from 611 kg/ha to 2351 kg/ha for grain and from 18.7 q/ha to 69.8 q/ha for stover. Hybrids yielded significantly higher grain than composites with an overall superiority of 25%. Earliness and ability to produce more panicles by hybrids appeared to contribute toward their higher grain yield. Hybrids had stover yield at par with composites. The data indicated that contemporary hybrids are inherently higher yielder than composites even under adverse conditions of arid and drier semi-arid regions. The population buffering mechanism of composites appeared not to give any advantage with espect to yield. Implications of these results are discussed in breeding pearl millet for drier zone of north-western India. Key words: Pennisetum glaucum, pearl millet, arid, drought, hybrids, composites Introduction Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) is the most important cereal crop in the drought-prone parts of Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat in north-western (NW) India and is valued for both grain and stover. In comparison to other regions, productivity of pearl millet is very low in the drier parts of NW India [1] primarily due to harsh agro-climatic conditions with scanty and unevenly distributed rainfall (often <400 mm of seasonal rainfall), high soil and air temperatures and, low soil fertility. These climatic factors have significant influence on new cultivar adoption, which remains very low in arid as comparison to non-arid regions [2]. The pearl millet improvement programme in India have been targeting NW regions by developing suitable cultivars for this region. The available choice of cultivar types in pearl millet include hybrids and composites. The key issue often debated is comparative advantage of hybrids or composites under severe drought conditions. It is generally argued that genetically heterogeneous composites might be useful to exploit population buffering mechanism [3-5] in order to provide higher and stable performance under unpredictable drought environments of arid and drier semi-arid areas. However, empirical evidence from well planned experiment conducted in the target region on relative productivity of two groups of cultivars of pearl millet is lacking. The present paper addressed this issue through assessment of comparative performance of contemporary experimental hybrids and composites for grain and stover yields. Materials and methods The genetic material consisted of hybrids and composite varieties evaluated in a trials during 1998-2009 at various All India Coordinated Pearl Millet Improvement Project (AICPMIP) centres located in the drier zones of *Corresponding author’s e-mail: opyadav21@yahoo.com Published by Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding, F2, First Floor, NASC Complex, PB#11312, IARI, New Delhi 110 012 Online management by indianjournals.com Prospects of enhancing pearl millet ( Pennisetum glaucum ) productivity under drought environments of North-Western India through hybrids O. P. Yadav*, B. S. Rajpurohit, G. R. Kherwa, A. Kumar 1 All India Coordinated Pearl Millet Improvement Project, Mandor, Jodhpur 342 304 1 Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur 342 003 (Received: October 2011; Revised: January 2012; Accepted: January 2012)