Abstract
Pigeonpea is one of the important pulse crops grown in many states of India and plays a major role in sustainable food and nutritional security for the smallholder farmers. In order to overcome the productivity barrier the Translational Pigeonpea Genomics Consortium (TPGC) was established, representing research institutes from six different states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh) of India. To enhance pigeonpea productivity and production the team has been engaged in deploying modern genomics approaches in breeding and popularizing modern varieties in farmers’ fields. For instance, new genetic stock has been developed for trait mapping and molecular breeding initiated for enhancing resistance to fusarium wilt and sterility mosaic disease in 11 mega varieties of pigeonpea. In parallel, genomic segments associated with cleistogamous flower, shriveled seed, pods per plant, seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, and seed protein content have been identified. Furthermore, 100 improved lines were evaluated for yield and desirable traits in multi-location trials in different states. Furthermore, a total of 303 farmers’ participatory varietal selection (FPVS) trials have been conducted in 129 villages from 15 districts of six states with 16 released varieties/hybrids. Additionally, one line (GRG 152 or Bheema) from multi-location trials has been identified by the All India Coordinated Research Project on Pigeonpea (AICRP-Pigeonpea) and released for cultivation by the Central Variety Release Committee (CVRC). In summary, the collaborative efforts of several research groups through TPGC is accelerating genetics gains in breeding plots and is expected to deliver them to pigeonpea farmers to enhance their income and improve livelihood.
Highlights
Pigeonpea is a pulse crop grown in many countries of the world and plays an important role in sustainable nutritional food security
1F1) from respective important to note that we have developed two different sets of 10 markers each associated with crosses tested with markers for foreground selection second backcrossing
Thirty genotypes of super-early maturity group were tested in year 1 at five centers, namely, Kalaburagi, Kanpur, Tandur, Lam, and Patancheru, while in year 2, it was tested at three centers, namely, Tandur, Lam, and Kanpur
Summary
Pigeonpea is a pulse crop grown in many countries of the world and plays an important role in sustainable nutritional food security. In recent times molecular breeding approaches have been successful in developing superior varieties and enhance the production of cereal crops, like rice [3,4,5,6], wheat [7,8,9,10,11], sorghum [12,13,14], maize [15,16,17], and pearl millet [18,19], and in legume crops, such as chickpea [20,21,22,23,24] and soybean [25,26,27] Such approaches have not been used until recently in pigeonpea, primarily due to limited information on genes/markers associated with traits. This article may inspire other less-studied crop communities to take similar consortium-based approaches for crop improvement
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