Record Details

Pigeonpea hybrids and their production: a manual for researchers

OAR@ICRISAT

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/11078/
 
Title Pigeonpea hybrids and their production: a manual for researchers
 
Creator Tikle, A
Saxena, K B
Yadava, H S
 
Subject Plant Breeding
Pigeonpea
 
Description Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L. Millsp.) is crowned as poor man’s crop which
provides much needed protein to farming families with least inputs.. It is a
versatile plant species which can grow successfully in a range of soil types,
temperatures and photoperiods. Its deep root system enables it to overcome
intermittent drought and other stresses. In India, the crop is grown annually on
about 4.04 m (FAO, 2012) ha and the major pigeonpea growing states are
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar and Gujarat (Table 1). The high protein pigeonpea dal (decorticated dry
splits) is widely consumed across the country in various cuisines. The annual
national production of pigeonpea is about 2.56 m tones. This produce,
however, is not sufficient to feed the ever growing population of the country,
and hence, necessitates huge (500,000 tons) imports of this pulse. In spite of
its importance in food security and sincere research efforts, its national
productivity could never cross the bar of 800 kg/ha (Fig 1) since
independence. Since last 50 years ICAR have been very seriously pursuing
the issue of genetic enhancement with huge investments and some outstanding
pure line varieties with about 10% more grains over the best local
varieties were developed. These achievements, however, were not enough to
feed the nation with nutritious food and a major breakthrough in pigeonpea
productivity was needed. Intensive national efforts in this direction could not
succeed in raising the stagnant productivity level. Recently, an opportunity
had come in our way when cytoplasmic nuclear male sterility (CMS) based
hybrid pigeonpea technology was developed jointly by International Crops
Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Indian Council of
Agricultural Research (ICAR). The release of the world’s first commercial
hybrid ICPH 2671 by Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya,
Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh has already become a milestone in pulse breeding
(Saxena et al., 2013). This hybrid has demonstrated huge (>40%) yield
advantage in farmers’ fields. This research development has given the
breeders an option to break the decades-old yield plateau in pigeonpea. For
realizing high yields from hybrids and reap the benefits of this technology, the
availability of both quality seed and optimum agronomy are essential. Since in
hybrids every year new crossed seeds are required for sowing, the production
of large quantities of quality seed is the key for their success. In this book
efforts are made to describe various methods of breeding new hybrid
combinations and large scale seed production of promising hybrids and their
parents...
 
Publisher ICRISAT
 
Date 2018
 
Type Monograph
NonPeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/11078/1/Pigeonpea%20hybrid%20%26%20Seed%20Production.pdf
Tikle, A and Saxena, K B and Yadava, H S (2018) Pigeonpea hybrids and their production: a manual for researchers. Manual. ICRISAT.