VATIS UPDATE Article

A team of 19 scientists from the School of Agriculture and Environment and the University of Western Australia, Shenzhen Millennium Genomics, China, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, India, University of Agricultural Sciences, India, Visva-Bharati (Shantiniketan) and International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India, have discovered new traits such as resistance to various diseases that affect the domesticated pigeon pea or arhar or tur dal.

“This breakthrough will help develop superior varieties of this pulse crop and help farmers increase production,” said ICRISAT. “The study used re-sequencing data to identify genomic regions impacted by domestication and breeding that have contributed to narrowing the genetic base, while also identifying the genetic origin of the crop at a DNA level for the first time,” said Rajeev K Varshney, at ICRISAT.

An ICRISAT-led global team had decoded its DNA sequence in 2011. Though a major source of protein, fiber, minerals and vitamins, pigeon pea yields have remained stagnant over the last six decades, with limited genetic diversity and genome information, required to develop better varieties. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Genetics.