Abstract
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-022-01133-3.
Highlights
Crop improvement is the foremost prerequisite for alleviation of environmental stresses and meeting food demand of the escalating population
Sequence-specific gene silencing via RNA interference (RNAi) is a promising biotechnological approach to knock down specific gene targets affecting the insect biology, thereby reducing the severity of plant damage and curtailing yield losses
Larval stages of M. vitrata were collected from pigeonpea fields at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and their identity was confirmed by morphological characterization(Shinde et al 2017) and use of molecular markers (Chatterjee et al 2019)
Summary
Crop improvement is the foremost prerequisite for alleviation of environmental stresses and meeting food demand of the escalating population. The key source of dietary proteins are bogged down by several stresses, one of the major being insect pests that cause about 18–20% annual yield losses (Saxena et al 2020). The lepidopteran legume pod borer, Maruca vitrata is known to cause serious damage to various leguminous crops (Sujayanand et al 2021). Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan), an important legume crop and a source of dietary protein, experiences approximately 51% yield losses annually due to M. vitrata (Mahalle and Taggar, 2018). Due to the lack of resistance sources, management of this voracious herbivore is vital for pigeonpea improvement. Sequence-specific gene silencing via RNA interference (RNAi) is a promising biotechnological approach to knock down specific gene targets affecting the insect biology, thereby reducing the severity of plant damage and curtailing yield losses
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