Evaluation of somaclones derived from in-vitro culture induced somatic tissues in pigeonpea Saxena K.B.*, Kumar R.V., Chintapalli P.L., Sharma K.K., Mallikarjuna N. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru-502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India *E-mail: k.saxena@cgiar.org
Abstract Fifteen somaclonal variants developed from adventitious shootderived callus from the cotyledonary explants of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.)Millsp.]var. ‘ICPL87’wereassessedacross two seasons for some agronomic and cooking quality characters. The mutant inbreds showed significant variation for days to maturity, plant height, seed size, seed colour and grain yield. Some of the somaclonal variants such as ‘ICPL 99073’, ‘ICPL 99072’ and ‘ICPL 99070’ were found promising and displayed significant positive changes for some important agronomic traits. Those include a change from small seed size and brown seed coat colour to more preferred large white seeds endowed with more seed yield. For grain yield, ‘ICPL 99073’ showed 25.3% yield advantage over the parent variety. The studies demonstrated the scope of genetic improvement in pigeonpea through deployment of somatic culture and exploitation of somaclonal variation. Top Keywords Field evaluation, Pigeonpea, Seed colour, Seed size, Somaclonal variation, Yield. Top |