Diversity in the Landraces of Green Gram [Vigna radiata (L) R. Wilczek] Collected from Tribal Communities of Peninsular India

Abstract

Landraces of green gram [Vigna radiata (L) R. Wilczek] were collected from tribal communities of Adilabad district of Telangana state of Peninsular India by taking up targeted germplasm surveys. Gonds emerged as the major conservators of green gram germplasm among the nine tribal communities from whom germplasm was collected. A total of 69 accessions of landraces collected were characterized and evaluated for nine quantitative characters such as days to 50% fifteen qualitative and flowering, plant height (cm), primary branches per plant, number of clusters per plant, pods per cluster, number of seeds per pod, 100-seed weight (g), pod length (cm) and total pods (no.). ANOVA revealed that there was significant variation for all the traits studied except seeds per pod. The clustering analysis using Ward’s minimum variance method gave three major clusters. Examination of the clustering and the associated landrace name revealed that accessions with same landrace name clustered in different clusters and different landraces with distinct names clustered together this shows the existence good diversity among the landraces and also the scope for improvement of popular landraces with other closely associated landraces.