Identification of donors of mungbean and urdbean against yellow mosaic disease

Mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) and urdbean (Vigna mungo L.) are major pulses crops predominantly cultivated during rainy season in northern and central India and during winter season in costal belt. In India, mungbean and urdbean productivity is constrained by a number of foliar and root diseases. Exploitation of host plant resistance for the development of high yielding varieties is the most economical and feasible component of integrated diseases management (IDM), hence remain a major objective of the crop improvement programmes around the world. The present investigation was undertaken to identify resistant donors against yellow mosaic disease (YMD) and therefore 200 germplasm accessions of mungbean and 100 of urdbean procured from ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBPGR), New Delhi and ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research (ICAR-IIPR), Kanpur were phenotyped under natural field conditions, besides molecular characterization of viral pathogen and monitoring growth parameters. None of the mungbean and urdbean lines were found resistant to YMD during two seasons of the screening. However, 16 mungbean and 41 urdbean accessions manifested moderate resistant reaction, respectively and were identified as potential donors against MYMIV for utilization in breeding programme. These accessions also performed well with respect to growth parameters and grain yield. The sequence analysis of virus revealed 99.08 to 95.95 percent similarities with Mungbean yellow mosaic India virus (MYMIV) infecting distinct hosts from different geographical regions.

• The study could identify the donors of mungbean and urdbean against Mungbean yellow mosaic virus.