Colorimetric Assessment of Husked Grain Variation and Porridge Quality in Foxtail Millet

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ABSTRACT Grain colour and porridge quality are crucial selection criteria in foxtail millet ( Setaria italica ) breeding. However, large‐scale phenotyping is a major constraint due to its reliance on slow and subjective manual evaluation, which significantly limits breeding efficiency. In this study, a colorimeter was used to quantify genetic variation in husked millet colour under different storage conditions and to assess its relationship with millet porridge quality. Analysis of 233 foxtail millet accessions revealed extensive variation in husked millet colour, with b* (yellowness) and ΔE (total colour difference) values ranging from 12.00 to 63.74 and 0.28 to 39.37, respectively. All colour parameters exhibited high broad‐sense heritability (H 2 ), ranging from 68% to 86%. Strong genetic control was detected for b* and ΔE, as their high genotypic variances (24.28 and 19.05, respectively) constituted the primary component of phenotypic variance. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the first few components explained 92.16% of the total variability. Furthermore, the b* value significantly decreased by an average of 5.22 after 1 year of storage and was strongly correlated with porridge quality ( p < 0.0001; parameter estimate: 0.4501). We demonstrate that the CIELAB b* parameter is an effective and rapid indicator for selecting superior genotypes, providing breeders with a valuable tool for germplasm innovation and variety improvement.

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