Wild pearl millet population (Pennisetum glaucum,Poaceae) integrity in agricultural Sahelian areas. An example from Keita (Niger)

Morphometric and isozymic analyses of adjacent cultivated and spontaneous populations of pearl millet in Niger revealed in the field a unique continuous distribution of phenotypes ranging from the most cultivated one to a typical cultivated × wild hybrid. The natural population was subdivided into a major wild group and a hybrid wild × cultivated group. Cultivated millet displayed an equilibrium state between recombined domesticated and wild genes. The natural population, in spite of a high rate of immigration by pollen from cultivated plants, retained its structure by apparently reproducing itself exclusively from the major wild group.