Improvement of plant architecture in chickpea and mungbean

Chickpea and mungbean are important grain legume crops of Pakistan and are mainly grown on marginal lands. Under improved cultural practices and moisture conditions these tend to make excessive vegetative growth resulting in low grain yield. A change in plant type is needed to realize higher yield under improved cultural practices. After mutagenic treatment of locally adapted cultivars of chickpea and mungbean, we selected upright compact plant type mutants in chickpea and short statured, uniformly maturing, high yielding mutants in mungbean. The upright compact mutant of chickpea UR16 showed good yield potential when using a higher seed rate. It has a tendency to lodge but some lodging resistant recombinants have been obtained through hybridization with other cultivars. In mungbean mutant 605, 1038 and NIAB 28 are early maturing and show consistently higher yield and high harvest index. NIAB 28 is short statured and two to three secondary branches emerge near the basal node. Mutants with appropriate plant height combined with desirable pod bearing pattern have been selected after mutagenic treatment of Kabuli mung. (author)