Breeding Climate-Resilient Pigeonpea in Climate Change Era: Current Breeding Strategies and Prospects
摘要
Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millspaugh] is a prominent pulse crop of low-input agriculture and serves as a prime protein source in the traditional cereal-based diet to fill the nutritional gap in tropical and subtropical regions. However, the production potential of pigeonpea has not been harnessed completely owing to its susceptibility to numerous biotic and abiotic stresses and cultivation in marginal lands. In the era of climate change, the pigeonpea is exposed to unforeseen weather calamities and the resurgence of various pests and diseases resulting in up to cent per cent yield losses depending on the crop growth stage and vulnerability to the stress. Thus, there is a pressing need to develop climate-smart crop varieties to meet the food demand of an ever-growing population. Though conventional breeding approaches successfully developed high-yielding cultivars, the success rate was poor owing to a narrow genetic base, difficulty in identifying genes tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses and poorly developed genetic resources. With refinements and advancements in DNA sequencing technologies, a huge quantity of genomic data is available in the public domain, providing novel insights into the crop evolution and breeding history. Integrating conventional and genomic-assisted breeding (GAB) approaches with high-throughput phenotyping platforms could effectively accelerate the production potential and provide a better understanding of the trait genetics to accelerate the rate of genetic gain. Novel technologies, viz. genome-wide association studies, genome editing, etc., delivered promising results for improving the stress resilience. This chapter provides an insight into the breeding strategies for pigeonpea resilience in the current context of climate change, emerging pests and diseases.