Mutation breeding in oilseeds and grain legumes in India: Accomplishments and socio-economic impact

In India, oilseed and grain legume crops are important food components as they are major contributors for dietary oils and proteins. In order to generate genetic variability in these crops, mutation research using X-rays, gamma rays, fast and thermal neutrons is extensively carried out in several national institutes, state agricultural universities including Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai since half a century. Besides cytogenetic studies, the era of direct mutants as crop varieties began in groundnut, mustard, pigeonpea and mungbean. Induction of modified traits and their incorporation in an ideal genotype was achieved by judicious use of induced mutation and hybridization techniques. So far about 100 mutant varieties in oilseeds and legumes have been released in India. Of these, BARC has developed 33 varieties by incorporating desirable traits like large seed, semi dwarf habit, high harvest index, better partitioning, fresh seed dormancy, yellow seed colour, drought tolerance, powdery mildew resistance, yellow mosaic virus resistance, bacterial pustule resistance. Many of the breeding programmes in national/state systems have been utilizing BARC varieties as parental materials/donors and developed several improved varieties. Several of these varieties have high patronage from the farming community and extensively grown in the country. Groundnut varieties have made considerable impact by giving record yields across the country. Further, mungbean varieties were also surging ahead by virtue of their resistance to yellow mosaic virus, Rhizoctonia root-rot and powdery mildew diseases with suitability to rice fallow situations. Blackgram variety TAU-1 has occupied maximum blackgram area in Maharashtra state. These crop varieties also facilitated farmers to develop newer cropping systems. Mutant varieties like Aruna of castor, Pusa 408 (Ajay), Pusa-413 (Atul), Pusa-417 (Girnar) of chickpea, Co-4, Maru Moth-1 of mothbean are among the important varieties of economic significance released by other institutes in India. Thus, induced mutation research remained in the forefront of Indian agricultural research by developing popular varieties with higher productivity potential in oilseeds and legumes. (author)