Field characterization of endemic wild Vigna accessions collected from biodiversity hotspots of India to identify promising genotypes for multiple agronomic and adaptive traits

Wild Vigna species possess a reservoir of useful genes that have potential to be utilized in improvement of cultivated mungbean and urdbean. The level of genetic diversity in representative accessions of cultivated and wild Asiatic Vigna species collected from diversity-rich endemic areas of India was investigated using morphological descriptors. Data were recorded on 27 qualitative and quantitative traits in 44 wild and cultivated accessions belonging to 12 Vigna species grown over 2 years and analyzed to compute mean and variances for each trait. Cluster analysis following unweighted pair group method based on arithmetic mean grouped accessions into five clusters with cluster I accommodating most of the accessions. The different accessions showed variation at species level based on morphological descriptors. 3 accessions viz., IC251424 and IC251425 of V. radiata and IC331436 of V. trilobata were superior for multiple traits viz., number of seeds/pod, seed quality and early maturity. Likewise for seed size, IC 298665 of V. unguiculata and PRR 2008-2 of V. umbellata were identified as promising donors while for earliness, 3 accessions of V. trilobata (IC 331545, IC 349701 and JAP/10-7), 1 of V. radiata (IC 251427) and 1 each of V. mungo (IC 251385) and V. unguiculata (IC 298665) were identified as maturing significantly early and therefore, could be used in hybridization programme for introgression of these traits. This evaluation and characterization study on endemic Vigna species provides useful information for improving mungbean and urdbean cultivars through recombination breeding.