Sorghums and Millets Information Center (Smic)
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• SORGHUMS AND MILLETS INFORMATION CENTER (SMIC) PROVISIONAL THESAURUS OF SORGHUM AND MILLET TERMINOLOGY DONALD LEATHERDALE International Development Research Centre Ottawa, Canada 1978 INTERNATIONAL CROPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR THE SEMI-ARID TROPICS (ICRISAT) 1-11-256 Begumpet, Hyderabad-500016 {AP), India THESAURUS OF SORGHUM AND MILLET TERMINOLOGY CONTENTS Page Foreword (not in provisional edition} Introduction iii Section l Categorized and systematic presentation l A Sorghums, millets and related crops 3 B Botany 8 C Breeding and genetics 14 D Agronomy and cultivation 19 E Field and storage pests (including diseases} 30 F Products 40 G Utilization 45 H Economics 50 J Research and development 52 Section 2 Alphabetical presentation 53 References 303 -iii- INTRODUCTION The Sorghums and Millets Information Center (SMIC) is the third specialized centre, concerned with the collection and dissemination of information on a crop or a related group of crops, to have been established within the programs supported by the Con sultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) As with the Cassava Information Center, operating at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia, and the International Grain Legume Information Centre, based at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria, one of the prime obJectives of SMIC is the organization of the world-wide literature relating to its interests, which in this case are pearl millet and sorghums It is by no means sufficient to collect together in one library this scattered documentation it has to be made known and accessible to the world's researchers on these crops An essential step in the organization of such an information analysis and re trieval system is to decide upon the terms that will be used to describe the subJect content of the literature, and experience at CIAT and IITA has shown that this is well accomplished by using a controlled and structured vocabulary - a thesaurus - designed for its particular task A thesaurus of this type is used at both ends, so to speak, of the operation it is used by the indexer as a source of potential terms to be assigned to a document, and it is used at retrieval to lead the enquirer or information specialist not only to the specific terms of the query but to other terms that may be very relevant to the user's immediate interest Although SMIC's field of activity is at present limited to the sorghums and to pearl millet, I have taken a broader view of the millets in this thesaurus and included the cultivated millets in general and forage grasses that are phylogenetically close to them The intention is to makp the vocabulary ultimately useful to a wider spectrum of users, in much the same way as the Thesaurus on trop~caZ gra~n and forage legumes (Leatherdale, in press) (see References, page 303) covers a greater range of leguminous crops than was initially needed by IITA -iv- The taxonomy and nomenclature of cultivated plants are subJects for perennial argument They are particularly contentious when one is dealing with those crops, such as the sorghums and millets, that have been in cultivation for hundreds or even thousands of years, and the problem has been well expressed by J R Harlan (1970) "The conspicuous and exuberant variation in cultivated plants and their relatives has raised taxonomic problems that have never been solved nor adequately treated The methods of classical taxonomy seem to fail altogether and inevitably result in the establishment of dozens of epithets for races that are fully compatible when crossed One example among many is Snowden's treatment of Sorghum in which he naMed 52 species among the cultivated sorghums alone All of these 'species' are fully compatible when hybridized with one another 11 I hold that it would be of little service to the user of a thesaurus if he were to be misguided in this respect, and I have accordingly continued to follow a compromise path that has the merit of having been found workable Plants that are used in their wild state or have otherwise undergone no intentional genetic improvement are des cribed by their scientific names, common names for them are treated as synonyms On the other hand, those plants that have long been cultivated, and may therefore be assumed or known to have been im proved, may be indexed either under the scientific name or under a selected and therefore 'authorized' common name, the two terms being related to each other in the thesauric sense and not treated as synonyms In general, it will be found advantageous to index germplasm sources under the scientific name and crop information under the common name This thesaurus is presented in two sections In Section 1 Categorized and systematic presentation (pp 1 - 52), the total vocabulary is divided among nine subject headings and these give an indication of the subJect scope of the system This presentation is intended to give a broad view of the subJect, and may be helpful in indicating the location of a certain subJect area, but in general this section is a less effective tool than Section 2 for indexing or retri eva 1 -v- The thesauric unit is the term, keyword or descriptor In Section 1, maJor or top descriptors appear to the left-hand side of the page and narrower or contained descriptors are listed below them and preceded by a hyphen (-) No detail is given in this section, except to show respective related terms, which are pre- ceded by an asterisk (*) The following example indicates the term structures of Section 1 B BOTANY PLANT-GROWTH SUBSTANCES * GROWTH * HERBICIDES E - ABSCISINS ~ AUXINS * SYNTHETIC AUXINS E - INDOLE-3-ACETIC ACID - GIBBERELLINS Here, PLANT-GROWTH SUBSTANCES is a maJor descriptor in category B (Botany) it has no broader or more generic term GROWTH and HERBICIDES are descriptors related to PLANT-GROWTH SUBSTANCES (Related terms by and large fall within the same category as the descriptor to which they are related, but, when they do not, they are followed by a letter indicating the category to which they have been assigned ) ABSCISINS, AUXINS and GIBBERELLINS are narrower or more specific terms of PLANT-GROWTH SUBSTANCES, and INDOLE-3- ACETIC ACID is a narrower term of AUXINS SYNTHETIC AUXINS is a descriptor related to AUXINS Section 2 Alphabetical presentation (pp 53-302) is the more important part of the thesaurus, for it displays the full array of relationships connected with each descriptor The descriptors, in upper case (capitals), and non-descriptors, in upper and lower case (small type), are given in a single alphabetical sequence The sequence is word-by-word, rather than letter-by-letter, with hyphens considered as spaces Words within parentheses and numerals are ignored unless they represent the only difference -vi- between sequential entries Thus Plant diseases PLANT-GROWTH SUBSTANCES Plant viruses PLANTAINS PLANTATIONS PLANTING (PLANTS) Pl anting (seed) PLANTS PLASTIDS The usual thesauric conventions have been applied, with Broader Term, Narrower Term and Related Term indicated by BT, NT and RT, respectively The use of RT is equivalent in search terms to the instruction "See also" A descriptor is usually sufficiently defined by its term relationships, which place it semantically, but some descriptors and, exceptionally, non-descriptors are accompanied by a Scope Note (SN) when it has been felt that explanation or limitation was required in the context of this thesaurus The synonyms, quasi-synonyms or pseudo-synonyms that a descriptor re places in the system are indicated by UF C'Use for"), and the reciprocal statement USE is employed only with the non-descriptors A letter after each descriptor shows the category or categories in which the term is to be found in Section l The use of these symbols may better be understood by examining two examples a) MY COSES E Descriptor/Category letter SN Includes pathogens ~cope J!ote UF DISEASES (FUNGAL) FUNGAL DISEASES Use For these synonyms PLANT PATHOGENS } - (non-descriptors) BT BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS } Broader Terms, more generic DISEASES AND PATHOGENS - than MYCOSES NT ASCOCHYTA SORGHINA DOWNY MILDEWS ERGOT Narrower Terms, more specific MACROPHOMINA PHASEOLI - than MYCOSES RUSTS SPHACELIA SORGHI RT DETERIORATION FUNGI } Related Terms to MYCOSES -vii- b) Fungal diseases Non-descriptor (synonym) USE MYCOSES USE this descriptor In order to make the system more manageable, certain chains of hierarchical descriptors have been restricted The descriptors concerned are BACTERIOSES, MYCOSES, VIROSES, INJURIOUS INSECTS, INJURIOUS MITES, NEMATODES, WEEDS, FUNGICIDES, INSECTICIDES, ACARICIDES, NEMATICIDES and HERBICIDES, all of which occur in Category E, Field and storage pests (including diseases) If we were to include, for example, all the known fungal diseases of sorghum under MYCOSES, or all the known chemicals used to control them under FUNGICIDES, we would compile lists of formidable length There are workers who require that sort of information, so a com- promise has been reached A tentative compilation of the most important organisms or pesticides has been given as narrower terms of the appropriate descriptors, and experience will tell what modification may be required For those users of this thesaurus whose detailed needs require the fuller treatment, it is recommended that they augment the present vocabulary with their complete listings The descriptors in the thesaurus reflect a considerable degree of pre-coordination, thus providing a higher degree of specificity for retrieval