2 research outputs found
Exploiting genomic resources for efficient conservation and utilization of chickpea, groundnut, and pigeonpea collections for crop improvement
Both chickpea and pigeonpea are important dietary source of protein, while groundnut is one of
the major oil crops. Globally, ~1.1 million grain legume accessions are conserved in genebanks,
of which, ICRISAT genebank holds ~50,000 accessions of cultivated species and wild relatives
of chickpea, pigeonpea, and groundnut from 133 countries. These genetic resources are
reservoirs of many useful genes for the present and future crop improvement programs.
Representative subsets in the form of core and mini core collections have been used to identify
trait-specific genetically diverse germplasm for use in breeding and genomic studies in these
crops. Chickpea, groundnut and pigeonpea have moved from ‘orphan’ to ‘genomic resources rich
crops’. The chickpea and pigeonpea genomes have been decoded, and the sequences of
groundnut genome will soon be available. With the availability of these genomic resources, the
germplasm curators, breeders and molecular biologists will have abundant opportunities to
enhance the efficiency of genebank operations, mine allelic variations in germplasm collection,
identify genetically diverse germplasm with beneficial traits, broaden the cultigen’s genepool,
and accelerate the cultivar development to address new challenges to production, particularly
with respect to climate change and variability. Marker-assisted breeding approaches have already been initiated for some traits in chickpea and groundnut, which should lead to enhanced
efficiency and efficacy of crop improvement. Resistance to some pests and diseases has been
successfully transferred from wild relatives to cultivated species