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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Genetic variation in biomass traits among Indian lentil cultivars
GP Dixit 1 , Varun Pathak 1 , Shiv Kumar 2 , Ashutosh Sarker 3 , Sanjeev Gupta 1
1 Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, India
2 International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, Morocco
3 International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, New Delhi
The concept of harvest index has been considered as a tool in interpreting crop response to
different environment and climate change. Generally, pulses are known to produce sufficiently
high biomass, but very little grainyield, resulting in poor harvest index. Such a behavior in them
seems to be a part of their builtin mechanism tailored to offset natural stresses. Lentils also
produce disproportionately large vegetative growth relative to grain yields. On the contrary,
species domesticated for commercial purposes are expected to produce optimum vegetative
growth to support maximum grain yields. In the recent changing climate scenario, it has been
observed that biomass production in lentil reduced drastically in lentil and, as a result, yield
component traits are affected. Therefore, the cultivars with high biomass and high harvest index
will be important to realize maximum grain yield. In the present study, 36 commercial cultivars
released in India were evaluated for higher biomass and harvest index both in macro and
microsperma types for their potential use in lentil improvement. Considerable variation was
observed for harvest index ranging from 38% (L 4076) to 63% (Barahia Local). However, nine
other varieties also had shown harvest indeces of over 55%. Among these, Asha was the earliest
flowering (< 60 days) while HUL 57 and L 4147 were late flowering types (> 80 days). On the
basis of seed size, DPL 62, IPL 406, DPL 15, PL 234 and NDL 1 were the large seeded varieties,
whereas Barahia Local, Asha, HUL 57, WBL 77 and L 4147 were the small seeded types with
high harvest index. The range for biomass per plant was observed between 3.4 g to 40.9 g. Eight
cultivars were identified with biomass above 20 g per plant. Among these varieties, IPL 406, IPL
315 and PL 234 were early maturing types in the large seeded group while L 4147, HUL 57, Asha
and WBL 77 were in the small seeded group. In the changing climate scenario, lentil breeders
have to concentrate on developing high biomass lines with higher harvest indices within the
desired maturity group and seed size. Therefore, three lentil genotypes viz. L 4147, IPL 406 and
PL 234 were suggested for their potential use as an agronomic base in lentil improvement.
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