Ishwari Singh Bisht

Global Wild Annual Lens Collection: A Potential Resource for Lentil Genetic Base Broadening and Yield Enhancement

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are invaluable gene sources for various traits of interest, yet these potential resources are themselves increasingly threatened by the impact of climate change as well as other anthropogenic and socio-economic factors. The prime goal of our research was to cover all aspects of wild Lens genetic resource management like species characterization, agro-morphological evaluation, diversity assessment, and development of representative sets for its enhanced utilization in lentil base broadening and yield improvement initiatives. We characterized and evaluated extensively, the global wild annual Lens taxa, originating from twenty seven counties under two agro-climatic conditions of India consecutively for three cropping seasons. Results on various qualitative and quantitative characters including two foliar diseases showed wide variations for almost all yield attributing traits including multiple disease resistance in the wild species, L. nigricans and L. ervoides accessions. The core set developed from the entire Lens taxa had maximum representation from Turkey and Syria, indicating rich diversity in accessions originating from these regions. Diversity analysis also indicated wide geographical variations across genepool as was reflected in the core set. Potential use of core set, as an initial starting material, for genetic base broadening of cultivated lentil was also suggested.

Broadening the Genetic Base of Grain Legumes

Pigeonpea was labeled as an orphan crop but is now a trendy and pacesetter, with ample genetic and genomic information becoming available in recent times. It is now possible to cross wild relatives not only from the Cajanus group placed in the secondary and tertiary gene pool but also the related genera placed in the quaternary gene pool. This is no small achievement for a legume which is an important crop of Asia and Africa and plays a major role in the diet of majority of the people of this region. The need of the hour is further committed research on wide crosses in pigeonpea.

Genetic studies on morpho-phenological traits in lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) wide crosses

Genetic studies were undertaken in nine intersubspecific and interspecific crosses of lentil to understand the inheritance pattern of morphological characters viz., growth habit, flower colour, cotyledon colour and pod dehiscence. The F1 and F2 generations of these wide crosses were assessed and suggested monogenic inheritance of these traits. The segregation pattern of these qualitative traits will also help in the identification of true to type F1 plants from the interspecific crosses. All nine intersubspecific and interspecific crosses exhibited a wide variability for days to flowering, maturity and duration from flowering to maturity. The results indicated that these characters are governed by independent sets of genes during the growth and development phases. Heritability of both characters has been reported to be high in all wide crosses. In India, cultivated lentil species have an intrinsically narrow genetic base and that situation limits our plant breeder’s progress today (Earskine et al. 1998). To attain further breakthrough in increasing yield and improving stability in future crop cultivars, new sources of variation need to be incorporated into the cultivated gene pool. Therefore, some efforts for broadening the genetic base of lentil cultivars using wild Lens taxa have been initiated by the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Pusa, New Delhi, India (Singh et al. 2013), and also in some other research organizations (Ahmad et al. 1995; Fratini and Ruiz 2006; Gupta and Sharma 2007). Incorporation of different traits of interest in the background of cultivated varieties has helped in the flow of useful genes with increased allelic frequency from wild Lens taxa in the common gene pool of cultivated varieties (Ladizinsky et al. 1988).

10 – Asian Vigna

The Asian Vigna in the subgenus Ceratotropis, with several recognized species distributed across Asia, constitute an economically important group of cultivated and wild species for which a rich diversity occurs in India and other parts of Asia. Taxonomically, cultigen and conspecific wild forms are recognized in all major cultivated Asiatic pulses, mung bean (V. radiata), urd bean (V. mungo), rice bean (V. umbellata) and azuki bean (V. angularis) except for moth bean (V. aconitifolia), which has retained a wild-type morphology. The cultivated species V. radiata and V. mungo are of Indian origin. The domestication of V. aconitifolia is also apparently Indian, whereas that of V. angularis and V. umbellata is Far Eastern. A comprehensive review on origin,distribution, diversity, evaluation and utilization including genomic resources of Asian Vigna species is described in the chapter. The compilation will be a valuable reference for agriculturists, conservationists, taxonomists and other researchers interested in the genetic and genomic resources management of Asian Vigna species.

Development of Core Set of Wheat ( Triticum spp. ) Germplasm Conserved in the National Genebank in India

Plant genetic resources, the source of genetic diversity provides a broad genetic foundation for plant breeding and genetic research, however, large germplasm resources are difficult to preserve, evaluate and use. Construction of core and mini core collections is an efficient method for managing genetic resources and undertaking intensive surveys of natural variation, including the phenotyping of complex traits and genotyping of DNA polymorphisms allowing more efficient utilization of genetic resources. A mega characterization and evaluation programme of the entire cultivated gene pool of wheat conserved in the National Genebank, India was undertaken. Wheat accessions with limited seed quantity, were multiplied in the off-season nursery at IARI Regional Station, Wellington during rainy season 2011 and the entire set of 22,469 wheat accessions were characterized and evaluated at CCS HAU, Hisar, Haryana during winter season 2011–12 for 34 characters including 22 highly heritable qualitative, and 12 quantitative parameters. The core sets were developed using PowerCore Software with stepwise approach and grouping method and validated using Shannon-Diversity Index and summary statistics. Based on Shannon-Diversity index, PowerCore with stepwise approach was found better than PowerCore with grouping. The core set included 2,208 accessions comprising 1,770 T. aestivum, 386 T. durum, and 52 T. dicoccum accessions as a representative of the total diversity recorded in the wheat germplasm. The core set developed will be further validated at different agro-climatic conditions and will be utilized for development of mini core set to enhance the utilization by wheat researchers and development of climate resilient improved varieties.