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People cannot call pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) an orphan crop any longer. Scientists from India and China have decoded the richness of this crop in terms of genetic traits. They have published genome sequence of this crop that was domesticated by Indians by about 3,500 years ago.
Scientists have worked on the pigeon pea genotype ICPL 87119, popularly known as Asha (or hope in English) in India, to develop the sequence.
We cannot read or understand that gibberish language of genome sequencing with a few alphabets running into thousands of lines without a comma or full stop or space. But that means a lot for scientists who will appreciate qualities – good and bad – of genomes that actually determine how the crop grows.
“A couple of hundreds of these genes were found unique to the crop in terms of drought tolerance, an important trait that can be transferred to other similar crops like soybean, cowpea or common bean that belong to the same family,” Dr William Dar, Director-General of ICRISAT, said, commenting on the development.
Scientists worked on this project represented International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, Hyderabad), CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) and Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI, Shenzhen, China).
As of now, the crop is by and large an orphan to a large extent with yields that are far lower than potential yields in the 50 lakh hectares the crop grown across the world.
Owing to biotic and abiotic stresses, there is a large gap between potential yield (2,500 kilogram a hectare) and yields obtained on farmer’s fields (866.2 kg/ha in Asia and 736.2 kg/ha in Africa), the team 31-member scientists team from the two countries said.
Together, limited genomic resources and low levels of genetic diversity in the primary gene pool have constrained genetic improvement of pigeon pea, they said.
Their findings, which were published in the latest issue of ‘Nature Biotechnology’, could trigger better varieties.
If pigeon were to be a novel, it could potentially have 48,680 characters, or genes. “This is the first draft genome sequence for a grain legume as well as the first for an orphan legume crop and probably the first for a non-industrial crop,” the scientists claim.
In the long-term, with the help of low-cost sequencing technologies or approaches, the draft genome sequence will facilitate understanding of the genetic basis of many traits at genome level.
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