https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jul <p><strong>JUL is </strong>an official publication of the <strong>Society of Underutilized Legumes, </strong>is an international peer-reviewed journal that is generally seeking to be one of the world’s most rated, well-indexed, and most globally circulated journals in the nearest future. JUL is dedicated to publishing original research articles as well as reviews and short communications on issues relating to research and development and other issues geared towards improving the economics, utilization, conservation and general development of the underutilized legumes in the African Continent and the world at large. The Journal basically covers areas of Agronomy, Crop Development, Botany, Biochemistry, Ethnobotany, Taxonomy,Biotechnology, Climate change, Animal Nutrition, Law, Commerce, Economics, and any other Field or Discipline wherein the research/discourse is majorly based on underutilized legumes. <strong>To accommodate a wider scope, the journal publishes articles covering other underutilized crops.</strong></p> <p>You can see this journal's website <a href="https://www.julegumes.org/index.php/jul" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p> en-US Journal of Underutilized Legumes 2705-3776 https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jul/article/view/295874 <p>Black fonio millet (<em>Digitaria iburua</em>) is an underutilized African crop that is significant in promoting food and nutrition security in West&nbsp; Africa. Despite its benefits, the potential for improvement of this crop remains largely untapped, and there is a paucity of knowledge&nbsp; about its genetic diversity and nutritional properties. This study evaluated the variability of forty-one (41) <em>D. iburua</em> accessions collected&nbsp; from farmers in Abuja, Nasarawa, Plateau, and Kaduna in Nigeria using nutritional traits as well as molecular markers. The descriptive&nbsp; statistics results showed a broad range of variations in the nutritional traits examined. Among the collection sources, Nasarawa&nbsp; accessions had the highest crude protein content, while Plateau accessions had the highest carbohydrate and crude lipid content. Also,&nbsp; sulfur, phosphorus, and potassium are among the most abundant mineral contents found in <em>D. iburua</em>. Furthermore, the molecular&nbsp; marker analysis revealed that the genetic distance between pairs of sources of collection varied from 0.61 to 0.79 with higher similarity&nbsp; between Nasarawa and Kaduna accession. The molecular variance analysis depicted 11% of the total variation existed among&nbsp; populations, whereas 89% was distributed within populations. Also, we identified four populations or major sub-clusters from the studied&nbsp; germplasm. Finally, these findings have shown the presence of high genetic diversity for Nigeria<em> D. iburua</em> accessions and&nbsp; present an opportunity for the crop's genetic improvement. Thus, accessions from Nasarawa State with higher protein content should be&nbsp; harnessed for use in areas with nutritional deficiency to aid in nutrition security.&nbsp;</p> C.O. Nwogiji C.U. Uba K.N. Majiok K.C. Nkpuma C.V. Nnamani C.A. Afiukwa S.D. Abdul E.A. Uyoh H.I. Opaluwa G.A-D. Enoch H.O. Oselebe Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2025-05-15 2025-05-15 7 2 1 16