Grafting pea, faba bean, and lentil to improve pulse crop breeding

Abstract

Gurusamy, V., Warkentin, T. D. and Vandenberg, A. 2012. Grafting pea, faba bean, and lentil to improve pulse crop breeding. Can. J. Plant Sci. 92: 31–38. In vivo grafting experiments were conducted to determine their potential for improving pulse crop breeding techniques for pea, faba bean and lentil. Four scion×five rootstock genotype combinations were used for pea. Survival of grafted pea scions was not affected by genotype of scions or rootstocks, even for wild subspecies. Some scion-rootstock combinations resulted in reduced flowering time for scions. Total seed production of rootstock regrowth plus grafted scion was greater than for ungrafted controls or rooted cuttings. For faba bean, four scion×four rootstock combinations showed scion-rootstock interaction affected percent survival and flowering time of grafted scions. In vivo grafting of lentil scions to faba bean rootstocks is reported for the first time. Two lentil genotypes were grafted onto four faba bean rootstocks. The effects of lentil scion and faba bean rootstock genotype were significant for percent survival, but not for seed production. Percent scion survival was 85% for pea, 56% for faba bean, and 55% for lentil scions on faba bean rootstocks. In vivo grafting techniques can help to maximize the size of F2populations for breeding and genetic studies. Intergeneric in vivo grafting of lentil onto faba bean rootstock could be useful for interspecific hybridization studies for lentil.