Abstract
Summary Haplotype‐based breeding, a recent promising breeding approach to develop tailor‐made crop varieties, deals with identification of superior haplotypes and their deployment in breeding programmes. In this context, whole genome re‐sequencing data of 292 genotypes from pigeonpea reference set were mined to identify the superior haplotypes for 10 drought‐responsive candidate genes. A total of 83, 132 and 60 haplotypes were identified in breeding lines, landraces and wild species, respectively. Candidate gene‐based association analysis of these 10 genes on a subset of 137 accessions of the pigeonpea reference set revealed 23 strong marker‐trait associations (MTAs) in five genes influencing seven drought‐responsive component traits. Haplo‐pheno analysis for the strongly associated genes resulted in the identification of most promising haplotypes for three genes regulating five component drought traits. The haplotype C. cajan_23080‐H2 for plant weight (PW), fresh weight (FW) and turgid weight (TW), the haplotype C. cajan_30211‐H6 for PW, FW, TW and dry weight (DW), the haplotype C. cajan_26230‐H11 for FW and DW and the haplotype C. cajan_26230‐H5 for relative water content (RWC) were identified as superior haplotypes under drought stress condition. Furthermore, 17 accessions containing superior haplotypes for three drought‐responsive genes were identified. The identified superior haplotypes and the accessions carrying these superior haplotypes will be very useful for deploying haplotype‐based breeding to develop next‐generation tailor‐made better drought‐responsive pigeonpea cultivars.
Highlights
Pigeonpea is an annual crop species, which is generally grown in marginal lands with minimal inputs
The varieties of the medium and late maturity groups are prone to terminal moisture stress which occurs at the pod filling stage
Analysis of sequencing data of 292 accessions of pigeonpea reference set with 10 candidate genes provided 925 variants ranging from 23 (C.cajan_13768) to 232 (C.cajan_26230) (Table S1; S2)
Summary
Pigeonpea is an annual crop species, which is generally grown in marginal lands with minimal inputs. Most of the traditional varieties grown fall into medium and late maturity groups. The varieties of the medium and late maturity groups are prone to terminal moisture stress which occurs at the pod filling stage. Breeding efforts were directed towards reducing the maturity time and early, extra-early and super early varieties were developed to escape the terminal moisture stress. Drought stress negatively influences an array of major biochemical and physiological processes leading to a reduction in leaf size, stem elongation, root proliferation, stomatal conductance and water-use efficiency. This leads to a severe decline in yield
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