here - First Legume Society Conference (LSC1)

Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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Overcoming the problem of variety contamination in pigeonpea through genetic means
Rafat Sultana 1 , Kul Bhushan Saxena 2 , Rajniti Singh 1 , Ravigopal Singh 1
1 Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bihar, India
2 International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India
Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] is an important pulse crop of India, grown mainly as rainfed
crop on about 4.2 m ha . Despite the largest producer (3.5 million tons) of pigeonpea India needs
to import around 5 lakh tons of pigeonpea annually. It has been observed that the productivity of
high-yielding disease resistant varieties generally decline over a period of time due to their genetic
contamination. Unlike other pulses, the variety deterioration in pigeonpea is very fast (2-4 years)
due to its peculiar floral morphology that permits 20-50 % natural out-crossing. Since most of the
pigeonpea varieties are of medium to long (6-9 months) duration, the variety re-constitution is
not a practical option. Hence, for quality seed production we need to depend on expensive
selfing or use of isolation. Also, in India, > 75% farmers use their own seed and it is always open
to contamination. To overcome this decade- long problem, a floral mutant in pigeonpea was
developed at ICRISAT controlled by a single recessive gene from an inter-specific cross (Cajanus
cajan x C. lineatus) which restrict the natural out-crossing to 1-2%. Keeping in view of the issue of
genetic purity in pigeonpea, an effort has been made to incorporate selfing trait in the existing
high yielding cultivars and new breeding materials. Developing farmer preferred pigeonpea
varieties with this selfing trait would reduce the cost of seed maintenance and also stabilize their
productivity by minimizing the hardship and yield losses associated with genetic contamination.
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