Use of Descriptor Codes in Agro-Morphological Characterization: Qualitative assessment of 20 LandRaces of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) from West Bengal

Abstract

Rice is one of the very few crop species endowed with rich genetic diversity which is embodied in the traditional rice landraces or folk varieties. It is one of the most researched crops. Rice genetic resources and human welfare are intricately interlinked. Rice has shaped the history, culture, diet and economy of billions of people of Asia. The diversity data generated in time and space have been valuable to communities, scientists and policy managers to formulate and implement conservation strategies of in situ, on-farm as well as ex situ conservation and management of genetic resources. West Bengal has rich rice genetic wealth. But this genetic wealth is being silently depleted due to the onslaught of the high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and neglect. Descriptor codes were used for the qualitative evaluation of genetic diversity among the 20 rice genotypes collected from different parts of West Bengal, following the Standard Evaluation System (SES) for rice developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). There is an urgent need to document, characterize and conserve these varieties.

Genetic diversity and population structure of pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan [L.] Millspaugh) landraces grown in Benin revealed by Genotyping-By-Sequencing

“…Different methods are usually used to access genetic diversity. One of them is the agro-morphological traits approach, given the accessibility of their easily measurable characteristics is the most used approach to establish relationships between genotypes and provide information for varieties improvement programs [15,16]. Hence, agro-morphological traits have been utilized in pigeonpea germplasm's characterization of both world reference collections [17] and national collections [18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

Agro-morphological characterization of pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L. Millspaugh) landraces grown in Benin: Implications for breeding and conservation

“…Different methods can be used to access genetic variability in plant species, such as pedigree data, morphological and molecular markers. The use of agromorphological traits is the most common approach utilized to estimate relationships between genotypes and provide information for plant breeding programs (Bajracharya et al, 2006;De, 2019). Data obtained by landrace description are futher statistically processed.…”