Neglected crop of yesteryears, pigeonpea is a multipurpose, versatile food legume, which has seen greater evolution in its plant architecture, duration and yielding patterns as time passed. Attractive market price for pigeonpea has drifted farmer’s attention from traditional cereal farming to pigeonpea production, giving opportunity for breeders to develop super-early maturity class in pigeonpea. With the life span of less than 100 days, latter proves to be foundation for future pigeonpea breeding due to its earliness, photo-insensitive nature, impressive per day productivity, adaptability across the varying range of altitudes, stress escape mechanism, niche to fit well in pulse – wheat cropping system and rice fallows as well as high density cropping systems. Faster generation turn over, is a boon to the breeders for faster introgression of trait of interest and to carry out studies on genetics of biotic and abiotic stress by developing mapping population within a very short duration. In the above context super-early varieties and hybrids serves as a wonderful breeding material to secure future sustainable dry land pigeonpea production.

1. Feb 2017
Super-early pigeonpea varieties and hybrids: New intervener
for maximized, time specific dry land production
Shruthi HB1
,2
Hingane AJ1
, Reddi Sekhar2
, Srivarsha J1
,3
, Bhosle TM1
,3
, Saxena RK1
, Varshney RK1
, Gaur PM1
, Wani SP1
, Sameer Kumar CV1
1
International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India.
2
Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Guntur, India.
3
Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth (VNMKV), Parbhani, India.
About ICRISAT: www.icrisat.org
ICRISAT’s scientific information: http://EXPLOREit.icrisat.org
For more details contact v.vadez@cgiar.org
Abstract
Neglected crop of yesteryears, pigeonpea is a multipurpose, versatile food legume, which has seen greater evolution in its plant architecture, duration and yielding patterns as time passed. Attractive
market price for pigeonpea has drifted farmer’s attention from traditional cereal farming to pigeonpea production, giving opportunity for breeders to develop super-early maturity class in pigeonpea.
With the life span of less than 100 days, latter proves to be foundation for future pigeonpea breeding due to its earliness, photo-insensitive nature, impressive per day productivity, adaptability across
the varying range of altitudes, stress escape mechanism, niche to fit well in pulse – wheat cropping system and rice fallows as well as high density cropping systems. Faster generation turn over, is a
boon to the breeders for faster introgression of trait of interest and to carry out studies on genetics of biotic and abiotic stress by developing mapping population within a very short duration. In the
above context “super-early varieties and hybrids serves as a wonderful breeding material to secure future sustainable dry land pigeonpea production”.
Introduction
Though India is a number one country in the production and consumption of pigeonpea, there
is still a dire need to import around 500,000 tons per year to satisfy the internal demand.
Apart from this, Climate change is a biggest bet for the breeders to get maximum yield across
all the adversities. In this context, super-early maturity class serves as a boon for maximizing
production being extra short duration, photo-insensitive and thermo-insensitive.
Why Super Early?
• Increasing pressure on land, triggered need to maximize the production by intensifying the
cropping system in a sustainable way.
• Failure of existing traditional short, medium and long duration cultivars of pigeonpea to fit in
the intensive wheat cropping systems and rice fallows.
• Long vegetative growth, attributing to slow initial growth, poor productivity and less efficient
utilization of land and other resources.
Emergence of super early pigeonpea
Gene pyramiding for earliness through early x early crosses and stacking the genes by
selections in the segregating generations led to the evolution of super early pigeonpea
A pedigree selection method was used to improve earliness
(days to 50% Flowering)
11 parental lines were crossed in complete diallel fashion
F1
were selfed to generate the F2
generation
Subsequent selfing and selection for earliness up to
F5
generation
Station trails
Initial Varietal trails
Advanced Yield trails
Multilocation testing of advanced lines (11NDT and 6 DT lines)
Highlights on Super early Pigeonpea lines
1. Significantly earlier to existing earliest short duration cultivar and matures in less than
100 days with a productivity range of 856 kg ha-1
(in Determinate types) to more than
2000 kg ha-1
(in non-determinate types).
2. Short stature helps in accommodating pigeonpea in high density planting system for
maximizing the production through optimum utilization of land and resources
3. Photo-insensitive and thermos-insensitive nature aids in expansion of pigeonpea in the
non traditional areas
4. Niche to fit well in pulse – wheat cropping system and rice fallows
5. Satisfactory per day productivity in comparison of existing short and extra short duration
varieties
6. Faster generation turnover assists in faster introgression of trait and development of
mapping populations
7. Shortened life cycle allows to escape biotic and abiotic stress.
Reference
Srivastava RK, Vales MI, Sultana R, Saxena KB, Kumar RV, Thanki HP, Sandhu JS and
Chaudhari KN (2012). Development of super-early pigeonpeas with good yield potential
from early × early crosses. SAT eJournal, Vol (10), pp: 1-5.
Vales MI, Srivastava RK, Sultana R, Singh S, Singh I, Singh G, Patil SB and Saxena KB (2012).
Breeding for earliness in pigeonpea: development of new determinate and nondeterminate
lines. Crop science, Vol (52), pp: 2507- 2515.
Vales MI, Sultana R and Saxena KB (2012). Evaluation of new super-early pigeonpea lines for
agronomic performance and adaptation in India. ICRISAT news letter.
Determinate (DT) Non-determinate(NDT)