Diversity and genetic resources of wild Vigna species in India

Abstract

Diversity in morphological characters of 206 accessions of 14 wild Vigna species from India was assessed. Of these, 12 species belonged to Asian Vigna in the subgenus Ceratotropis and two were V. vexillata and V. pilosa belonging to subgenus Plectotropis and Dolichovigna, respectively. Data on 71 morphological traits, both qualitative and quantitative, were recorded. Data on 45 qualitative and quantitative traits exhibiting higher variation were subjected to multivariate analysis for establishing species relationships and assessing the pattern of intraspecific variation. Of the three easily distinguishable groups in the subgenus Ceratotropis, all the species in mungo-radiata group, except V. khandalensis, viz. V. radiata var. sublobata, V. radiata var. setulosa, V. mungo var. silvestris and V. hainiana showed greater homology in vegetative morphology and growth habit. The species, however, differed in other plant, flower, pod and seed characteristics. Within species variation was higher in V. mungo var. silvestris populations and three distinct clusters could be identified in multivariate analysis. V. umbellata showed more similarity to V. dalzelliana than V. bourneae and V. minima in the angularis-umbellata (azuki bean) group. Within species variations was higher in V. umbellata than other species in the group. In the aconitifolia-trilobata (mothbean), V. trilobata populations, were more diverse than V. aconitifolia. The cultigens of the conspecific wild species were more robust in growth, with large vegetative parts and often of erect growth with three-to five-fold increase in seed size and seed weight, except V. aconitifolia, which has still retained the wild type morphology to a greater extent. More intensive collection, characterisation and conservation of species diversity and intraspecific variations, particularly of the close wild relatives of Asian Vigna with valuable characters such as resistance to biotic/ abiotic stresses, more number of pod bearing clusters per plant etc. assumes great priority in crop improvement programmes.

Pollen morphology of Asian Vigna species (genus Vigna; subgenus Ceratotropis)from India and its taxonomic implications

“…The sectional classification of subgenus Ceratotropis was confirmed by several researchers (Jaaska and Jaaska, 1990;Kaga et al, 1996;Doi et al, 2002;Konarev et al, 2002;Tomooka et al, 2002aTomooka et al, , 2002bSaini et al, 2008). Moreover, morphological studies and molecular approaches have been used efficiently for the taxonomy of the subgenus Ceratotropis (Verdcourt, 1970;Maréchal et al, 1978;Egawa and Tomooka, 1994;Lawn, 1995;Tateishi, 1996;Doi et al, 2002;Goel et al, 2002;Tateishi and Maxted, 2002;Tomooka et al, 2002b;Bisht et al, 2005;Tun and Yamaguchi, 2007;Saini et al, 2008;Saini and Jawali, 2009;Vir et al, 2010;Dixit et al, 2011;Javadi et al, 2011;Aitawade et al, 2012;Latha et al, 2014;Yadav et al, 2014).…”

“…Baker, and Vigna Savi (Verdcourt, 1970;Thulin et al, 2004;DelgadoSalinas et al, 2011). India, with 24 species (Sanjappa, 1992), represents a center of diversity for the subgenus Ceratotropis of genus Vigna (Arora, 1985;Babu et al, 1985;Bisht et al, 2005;Yadav et al, 2014). Recently, V. trilobata (L.) Verdc.…”

Environmental effects on sexual size dimorphism of a seed-feeding beetle

“…and size of seeds they produce (Bisht et al 2005). We chose three hosts that were representative of this variation and are the most commonly used hosts of C. maculatus.…”

Field characterization of endemic wild Vigna accessions collected from biodiversity hotspots of India to identify promising genotypes for multiple agronomic and adaptive traits

“…Efforts have been made to search for genes imparting yield traits and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses within the cultivated species and to a limited extent among their wild relatives but success has been limited to a few diseases and insect pests; mostly where the genes are confined to the primary gene pool of the particular species (Knott and Dvorak, 1976;Stalker 1980;Ladizinsky et al, 1988;Prescott and Prescott, 1986;Kumar et al, 2003;Hajjar and Hodgkin 2007). The use of wild relatives as sources of new germplasm is well established in crop breeding programs in several crops, especially cereals, but the efficiency with which wild germplasm is utilized for introducing disease resistance and other agronomic characters into elite cultivars varies greatly from species to species (Bisht et al, 2005a(Bisht et al, , 2005bKumar et al, 2011). To diversify and broaden the genetic base of cultivated germplasm, introgression of alien genes from wild species needs to be practiced in those cases where genes for some specific traits are not found in cultivated germplasm.…”