A team included researchers from ICRISAT, ICAR Institutes (ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research & ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute) and Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Dholi identified gene “Ccsmd04”, governing SMD resistance in Pigeonpea. SMD is a devastating disease of pigeonpea and can cause upto 90% yield loss under favourable conditions.
The identified resistance gene and four functional InDel markers associated with SMD resistance holds value in early generation screening of pigeonpea breeding progenies for SMD resistance. This will augment the efforts for breeding more resistant pigeonpea varieties.
The success of the team pave way for similar efforts to identify more resistance genes, to ensure stable resistance in farmers' fields.
Availability of such genomic resources could lead to fast track development of pigeonpea varieties resistant to SMD.
In long term this could be a key strategy in development of resilient cultivars of pulses having intrinsic capability to fight climate change associated vagaries.
(Source: ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur)
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