Genetic Parameters for Determining Useful Parents in Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) Breeding for Early Maturity, Small Seed Size, and High Seed Yield

Early maturity, small seed size, and high seed yield are important characters of mungbean in Indonesia. The objective of the study was to determine the useful parents in mungbean crosses for early maturity, small seed size, and high seed yield varieties by estimating the genetic parameters and their inheritance. The study was conducted at the ILETRI, Malang, East Java, Indonesia, during the dry season of 2014. 20 F1 and 5 parents were evaluated using a randomized block design, repeated three times. Results of the study showed that all observed traits showed the importance of both additive and dominance gene effects. The relative value of general combining ability (GCA) was greater than specific combining ability (SCA) for number of pod clusters per plant, number of branches per plant, plant height, days to maturity, and 100-seed weight which indicated the importance of additive gene effect. The dominance gene effect occurred on number of pods and seed yield per plant. Among five parents, G3 was the best combiner for all the observed characters except pod length; therefore, G3 could be exploited for late maturity, small seed size, high number of branches and pod cluster, and high seed yield. G5 has a high GCA for 100-seed weight. G1 and G2 have good GCA for early maturity. G3 and G5 genotypes are useful as parents in mungbean breeding for small and large seed size varieties, respectively. The best combination for seed yield was G2 × G3 and G3 × G1 crosses and could be proceeded with selection for early maturity, small seed size, and high seed yield varieties.

Seed Production of Red Clover (Trifolium pratense L.) under Danish Field Conditions

High and stable seed yield is critical for red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) seed production and the commercial exploitation of the crop. A three-year experiment was conducted from 2013 to 2015 under Danish field conditions to explore the influence of precipitation during peak flowering on the seed yield of three red clover cultivars. We investigated the flowering duration and intensity based on a visual scale assessment, seed yield, and thousand seed weight in all three experimental years. In 2014 and 2015 we measured the seed yield components of floret number per flower head, seed number per flower head, and seed set. During the experimental period, high seed yields of more than 1000 kg ha−1 were obtained for the diploid cultivars ‘Rajah’ and ‘Suez’. Although a relatively high seed yield of 500 kg ha−1 was obtained in the tetraploid cultivar ‘Amos’, this was only around half of the seed yield and seed set of the diploid cultivars. Precipitation during peak flowering positively influenced the seed yield and thousand seed weight for the three cultivars. We conclude that observations of flowering phenology are required to determine the impact of environmental conditions on seed yield in red clover cultivars. Further, adequate water supply during peak flowering is important to obtain the high seed yield of red clover.

Application of multivariate analysis to identify relationships among useful agronomic characters of cowpea and differentiation of cultivars for vegetable and grain uses

Background. Сowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is a thermophilic crop; in most countries it is grown for grain and vegetable uses. Positive results of open-field cowpea production in the southern regions of Russia and the possibility of its cultivation on infertile soils in hot and dry climate imply the need to develop new cultivars suitable for wider introduction into Russian agriculture. It is of paramount importance for cowpea breeders to know the patterns of variability in the relationships among agronomic traits and their characteristics in cultivars grown for different uses (grain and vegetable). Besides, acceleration of the breeding process to a large extent depends on the knowledge of the traits that make it possible to differentiate the source material according to its intended purpose.Materials and methods. For three years, 315 cowpea accessions of various origin from the VIR collection were studied in Astrakhan Province, Russia. Eight useful agronomic characters were examined. The variability and relationships of these characters were assessed in cultivars grown for grain and vegetable purposes using multivariate statistical analyses.Results and discussion. The characters that differentiate grain and vegetable cowpea accessions were identified: the type of seed coat surface, the presence of fiber in ventral and dorsal pod sutures and a sclerenchyma layer in pods valves, and pod length. Discriminant functions were calculated for identification and classification of accessions according to their grain and forage uses. The character (presence of depressions or longitudinal striae on the seed coat surface) diagnosing vegetable cowpea cultivars was pinpointed. Characters associated with high seed yield were identified. For grain cultivars such character is the weight of 1000 seeds, while for vegetable cultivars it is a large-seeded and long-fruit pod.

Genetic Diversity Studies in Mungbean (Vigna radiata L. Wilczek) Germplasm

An investigation was carried out to estimate the genetic divergence for twenty characters in 50 genotypes of greengram [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] using Mahalanobis's D2 statistic and total of eight clusters were formed. The highest number of genotypes were found in cluster II containing sixteen genotypes followed by cluster I with thirteen genotypes, cluster IV with ten genotypes, cluster VI with five genotypes, cluster VIII with three genotypes and clusters III, V and VII with only one genotype. Highest intra-cluster distance was observed for cluster IV (87.54) and lowest intra cluster distance was observed for clusters III, V and VII. The highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster IV and VIII (285.11),while the lowest inter cluster distance was observed between cluster VI and VII (251.29). Among the characters studied, phenols content contributed the maximum (32.57 %) towards the diversity. The genotypes present in the clusters V (COGG-13-19) and VII (LGG-544) showed high seed yield performance so, cross obtained between these genotypes will give better performance for yield. The genotypes in the cluster VI (GGG-1, GGG-1-1, IPM-2-14, WGG-42, EC-396117) and cluster III (AGG-35) exhibited resistance to YMV. Hence, the crosses among cluster V, VII, VI and III would give high seed yield along with YMV disease resistance.

Overlapping Functions of the Paralogous Proteins AtPAP2 and AtPAP9 in Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana purple acid phosphatase 2 (AtPAP2), which is anchored to the outer membranes of chloroplasts and mitochondria, affects carbon metabolism by modulating the import of some preproteins into chloroplasts and mitochondria. AtPAP9 bears a 72% amino acid sequence identity with AtPAP2, and both proteins carry a hydrophobic motif at their C-termini. Here, we show that AtPAP9 is a tail-anchored protein targeted to the outer membrane of chloroplasts. Yeast two-hybrid and bimolecular fluorescence complementation experiments demonstrated that both AtPAP9 and AtPAP2 bind to a small subunit of rubisco 1B (AtSSU1B) and a number of chloroplast proteins. Chloroplast import assays using [35S]-labeled AtSSU1B showed that like AtPAP2, AtPAP9 also plays a role in AtSSU1B import into chloroplasts. Based on these data, we propose that AtPAP9 and AtPAP2 perform overlapping roles in modulating the import of specific proteins into chloroplasts. Most plant genomes contain only one PAP-like sequence encoding a protein with a hydrophobic motif at the C-terminus. The presence of both AtPAP2 and AtPAP9 in the Arabidopsis genome may have arisen from genome duplication in Brassicaceae. Unlike AtPAP2 overexpression lines, the AtPAP9 overexpression lines did not exhibit early-bolting or high-seed-yield phenotypes. Their differential growth phenotypes could be due to the inability of AtPAP9 to be targeted to mitochondria, as the overexpression of AtPAP2 on mitochondria enhances the capacity of mitochondria to consume reducing equivalents.

Nature and Magnitude of Genetic Divergence among Blackgram [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper] Genotypes

Background: The choice of parents is a very crucial step which decides the success or failure of any plant breeding programme. Using the diversity analysis, parents with high diversity can be chosen to generate high magnitude of useful variability. Therefore, the present investigation was planned to assess the genetic divergence among 100 genotypes of blackgram for identification of diverse genotypes for their utilization in breeding programme.Methods: The material for study consisted of 100 blackgram genotypes collected from different sources and were evaluated at ARS, Bidar during kharif-2018. The experimental trial was laid out in lattice design (10×10) with two replications. Observations on 12 quantitative characters. The genetic divergence was assessed by using Mahalanobis’ generalized distance (D2) and clustering of genotypes by Tocher’s method.Result: The relative contribution of each character to the total diversity was different and contribution of days to maturity was maximum (66.04%) followed by reproductive period (15.86%). The genotypes were grouped into nine clusters by Tocher’s method. The cluster pattern revealed that, cluster II was the largest with 28 genotypes followed by cluster I (26), V (19), III (11), IV (10) and VII (3) and remaining viz., VI, VIII and IX were solitary clusters. The inter-cluster distance ranged from 15.50 to 514.44 indicating high magnitude of diversity. The genotypes belonging to cluster III viz., BDU-20, BDU-3-20, BDU-68, TRCRU-22 possessed desirable traits like earliness and higher seed size and genotypes of cluster IV viz., BDU-9, BDU-10, LBG-752 possessed traits like higher reproductive period, maturity and high seed yield were identified as diverse. These genotypes could be involved in recombination breeding programme for the improvement productivity in blackgram.

Results of studying wheatgrass (AgropyronGaertn.) accessions from the VIR global genetic resources collection in Yakutia

With the globally changing climate, researchers seek to use plants adapted to extreme environments in breeding and genetic programs. As a forage crop, the wheatgrass from the genus AgropyronGaertn. is most suitable for such purposes.The area of temperature distribution for wheatgrass lies in the range from +42 (arid zone) to –60°C (Verkhoyansk). The use of different wheatgrass species as a crop for arid conditions is quite profoundly studied in the USA, Canada, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Genetic and breeding studies are underway in different countries. In Yakutia, with its extremely continental climate, wheatgrass has not yet been introduced as a crop, although it could play an important role in establishing a sustainable fodder reserve.The aim of the work was to study and select promising breeding source material, identifying germplasm with the best agronomic traits. As a result of a two-year study of 19 accessions of different wheatgrass species from the collection of VIR, undertaken in 2018 and 2019 in the collection nursery in Central Yakutia, plant forms were selected that exceeded the average green biomass yield for two cuts: k-52382 (wild crested wheatgrass, Pavlodar Region, Kazakhstan) by 43%, and k-48705 (wild-growing Kerch wheatgrass) by 40%. Besides, wild wheatgrass accession k-52382 was identified for its dry matter yield (40.2% higher than the average) and for the total green and dry matter yield for the two cuts (212.7 g/plant).Accessions k-52440 (wild Siberian wheatgrass, Stavropol Territory) and k-51330 (crested wheatgrass, Chelyabinsk Province) were selected for their high seed yield (43.5 g/m² and 41.7 g/m², respectively). The content of crude and digestible protein was the highest in k-50857 (crested wheatgrass cv. ‘Ephraim’, USA) and k-50858 (Siberian wheatgrass cv. ‘Vavilov II’, USA): 14.6% and 99 g/kg of feed, and 14.2% and 96 g/kg of feed, respectively. Winter hardiness of 12 accessions turned out to be 100%, with 80% in another 7 accessions.

Stability Analysis for Yield and Its Component Characters in Blackgram [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper]

Background: Blackgram [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper] is an important pulse crop occupying a unique position in Indian agriculture. Blackgram provides a major share of the protein requirement of the vegetarian population of the country. The crop is resistant to adverse climatic conditions and improves the soil fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen in the soil. Phenotypically stable genotypes are of great importance because the environmental conditions vary from season to season and year to year. Stable performance of blackgram genotypes across contrasting environments is essential for the successful selection of stable and high yielding varieties. Methods: A total of seven genotypes of blackgram were evaluated one season (Rabi - 2019) in three environments to study the G x E interaction for three traits.Result: Based on the stability analysis of Eberhart and Russell model, two genotypes viz., MDU 1 and NRIB 002 were found to be stable across the environments for seed yield. These genotypes had high seed yield with a unity regression coefficient and deviation from regression equal to zero.

Selection of prosperous varieties of rosehips (rosa L.) And their seed productivity in Tashkent oasis, Uzbekistan

Rosehips fruit contains organic and inorganic substances, the most valuable compounds among organic substances are vitamins, which are accumulated in the flesh of the fruit, and they have important physiological effects for living organisms. The obtained experimental data were statistically processed by the method of analysis of variance. Many selected varieties of rosehips were unique not only in the size of the fruit, but also in the high seed yield: an average of 28.7 ± 0.65 pieces in the fruits of “Sijjak-5”, 29.1 ± 0.66 pieces in the fruits of “Sijjak-6”, 33.9 ± 0.93 fruits in “Sijjak-7”, 28.7 ± 0.66 fruits in “Sijjak-15” and 29.3 ± 0.64 fruits in “Burchmullo-18”. Rosehips seeds contain “rosehips oil”, which contains 10 mg% carotene, 200 mg% vitamin E, linoleic (56.71%) and oleic (29.32%) acids. “Sijjak-3”, “Sijjak-6”, “Sijjak-12” and “Chimgan-19” were selected as promising varieties, taking into account the valuable economic and biological characteristics of the fruit, such as size, productivity and fertility. Varieties “Parkent-21” and “Parkent-24”, according to the size of fruits and the amount of fruit flesh, whereas Parkent-26, “Kumushkon-29”, “Parkent-23”, “Chimgan-31”, “Koronkul”-32 were classified as promising varieties based on the highest yield.