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Large scale characterization of entire gene bank collections of cowpea and sesame at ICAR- NBPGR

Date Posted: 21-09-2020

Entire gene bank collections of cowpea (3,720) and sesame (4,824) are being characterized for agro morphological descriptors and selected breeder driven traits at ICAR-NBPGR Experimental Station, Issapur and ICAR-NBPGR Farm, IARI, New Delhi, respectively. The activity of large scale characterization and preliminary evaluation of entire germplasm in one go is being carried out in collaborative mode under DBT funded network project on minor pulses and oilseeds. Dr. Kuldeep Singh, Director, ICAR-NBPGR visited field experiments and stressed on the need for developing the high throughput phenotyping technique for facilitating large scale germplasm characterization and evaluation. Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is the need of hour to generate large scale characterization data in time bound manner and the images captured using drone helps in categorizing the entire germplasm for various purposes. Dr. Ashok Kumar, Head, Division of Germplasm Evaluation, ICAR-NBPGR explained and demonstrated the live variability for different traits in both the minor crops. Dr. Sanjay Kalia, Co-cordinator (Agricultural Biotechnology), DBT suggested that germplasm curators should develop the trait specific reference sets and identify the elite germplasm for accelerating their use in national breeding programme.

(SourceDr Ashok Kumar, Division of Germplasm Evaluation, New Delhi