AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE

www.arccjournals.com / indianjournals.comLegume Res., 36 (3) : 214 - 219, 2013

ASSESSMENT OF LENTIL GERMPLASM WITH RESPECT TO AGROMONICPERFORMANCE AND MAJOR BIOTIC STRESS

N.K. Gautam, Mohar Singh, Z. Khan, Anirban Roy, Jameel Akhtar and Babu Ram

National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources,Pusa, New Delhi-110 012

Received: 06-10-2012 Accepted: 29-03-2013

ABSTRACTCharacterization and evaluation of lentil germplasm (Lens culinaris Medikus) collected from

indigenous and exotic sources for flowering (61-123days), maturity (108-147days), plant height(18-70.80cm), pods per plant (9-158), primary branches/plant (2-6), root-knot nematode, fungal andviral diseases revealed considerable variation for different agro-morphological traits and level oftolerance against biotic stress of both macrosperma and microsperma types. Besides exhibiting awide range of variation in important agro-morphological traits by all the wild species, Lens nigricansand Lens ervoides emerged as valuable sources of resistance to several biotic stresses namely, Ascochytablight, rust and powdery mildew diseases. A new germplasm line (ILL-4605) identified earlier thanPrecoz in flowering (55-62 days) and may prove very useful in the lentil improvement programmesfor the development of varieties with bolder seeds (> 3.5 g /100g) and earlier maturity (110 days) aswell. Such germplasm lines, which mature 20-25 days earlier than the landraces of North India will beuseful and can be adopted for different cropping systems. Adoption of identified short duration,early maturing and bold seeded germplasm may help in heat and drought escape which otherwisewould have resulted in abortion of flower buds and subsequently low crop yield. A range of traitspecific germplasm identified for different agro-morphological characters are, early flowering (IC-560333, IC-559639, IC-560111 and IC-560148), high biomass (IC-559744, IC-559608, IC-559767 andIC-560040), high yielding (IC-398094, IC-560212, IC-560332 and IC-560206) and high number ofprimary branches (IC-559870, IC-318881, IC-398688 and IC-560182) might be good option underunpredictable environmental situations. Occurrence of symptoms resembling to those of virus diseaseswere noticed in many germplasm accessions.

Key word: Agronomic performance, Biotic stresses, Evaluation, Lentil.

INTRODUCTIONLentil, an important cool season grain

legume crop of South Asia, West Asia and NorthAfrica grown mainly on residual soil moisture isfrequently subjected to terminal drought resulting inlow and variable seed yield (Erskine and Saxena1993). Water deficit during the reproductive phasesignificantly reduces initiation and production offlower, dry matter, number of pods and subsequentlyseed yield. Works done on seed development in lentilparticularly under terminal drought is scanty. Amongseveral factors for poor and unstable yield of foodlegumes, biotic and abiotic stresses appeared to bethe most important. Biotic stresses include insectpests, diseases and nematodes. Wilt (Fusariumoxysproum f. sp. lentis), Ascochyta blight (Ascochyta

lentis) and rust (Uromyces fabae) are the majorfungal diseases of lentil and it is also necessary toknow the viral incidence and the resulting loss ofseed yield. Besides the fungal diseases, lentil crop isalso affected by a number of virus diseases whichhave the potential to adversely affect lentil seed yieldand quality in different regions (Bos et al 1988,Bashir et a. 1998). Plant parasitic nematodes suchas root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne incognita andM. javanica), reniform nematode (Rotylenchulusreniformis), pigeonpea cyst nematode (Heteroderacajani) and root lesion nematode (Pratylenchusthornei are also considered as important constraintin the production of leguminous crops in tropicaland subtropical regions (Sharma et al 2005; Sikoraet al 2005). Thus, there is an urgent need to assess

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the variability of crop germplasm and their wildrelatives with respect to agronomic performance andability to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses. Sincethe genetic base of cultivated lentil is narrowtherefore, there is an immense need to widen thegenetic base through pre-breeding to make themmore acceptable to the plant breeders (Gupta andSharma 2007). Therefore, the present work wasundertaken to obtain information on evaluation forvarious agro-morphological traits including fungal,viral and nematode infection and level of tolerance /resistance in the available lentil germplasm.

MATERIALS AND METHODSOne thousand ninety six accessions of

cultivated lentil were sown in an augmented blockdesign (ABD) during rabi 2009-10 and 2010-11 forcharacterization and preliminary evaluation usingfive checks (L-4147, Precoz, L-830, L-4076 and L-4594). There were three rows of three meter lengthat a distance of 30 x 10 cm between rows and plants,respectively for each accession. Observations wererecorded on 20 plants / accession for seed yield andits important component traits. Likewise, sixty sevenaccessions of wild Lens taxa (L. culinaris spp.orientalis, L. culinaris ssp. odemensis, L. nigricansand L. ervoides) were also grown in pots undergreenhouse conditions at NBPGR, New Delhi duringrabi 2010-11 and 2011-12 to evaluate agro-morphogical traits. Same accessions were also

screened for resistance to root-knot nematode in potsfilled with 500g field soil heavily infested withMeloidogyne incognita (4 J2/g soil). Screening ofcultivated and wild species of lentil was done using1-9 rating scale for rust (Mishra et al 1985) andpowdery mildew (Aktar et al 2009) diseases undernatural field conditions at regional station ofChaudhary Sarwan Kumar Himachal PradeshAgricultural University, Dhaulakuan (HP), India.Virus symptoms were observed at different growthstages of the plant under field conditions atexperimental farm of NBPGR, New Delhi. Allexperiments were performed twice. Preliminaryanalysis showed no significant difference betweenthe two cropping seasons for any of the traits.Therefore, data were pooled together and statisticalanalysis was done following the methods suggestedby Panse and Sukhatme (1985).

RESULTS AND DISCUSIION Analysis of variance revealed wide range ofvariation in different agro-morphological traits, likedays to 50% flowering (60-123), days to maturity(108-147), plant height (18-70.8 cm), number ofpods/plant (9-158), and number of primary branches/plant (2-6) (Table 1). Superior accessions forearliness i.e. flowering in < 64 days (IC-560333 IC-559639, IC-560111 and IC-560148), high biomassin terms of vegetative growth ( IC-559744, IC-559608, IC-559767, IC-560040, IC-560291 and IC-

TABLE 1: Range of variation in some important traits of lentil germplasm (accessions: 1096).

Traits Mini. Maxi. Mean CV (%) Best check (value)

Days to 50% flowering (days) 61.0 123.0 86.0 6.5 Precoz (76.0)Maturity (days) 108.0 147.0 133.0 3.1 Precoz (125.0)Plant height (cm) 18.0 70.8 39.7 13.7 Precoz (30.8)Pods/ plant (No.) 9.0 158.0 59.5 24.9 L-4594 (72.0)Branches / plant (No.) 2.0 6.0 3.2 16.9 L-4594 (3.5)

Traits Accession (values) Best check (value)

Days to 50% flowering (days)

IC-560333 (62), IC-559639 (63), IC-560111 (64) and IC-560148 (64)

Precoz (76)

Days to maturity (days) IC-559648 (105) Precoz (125) Plant height (cm) IC-559744 (70.8), IC-559608 (69.2), IC-559767

(69.0), IC-560040 (68.8), IC-560291 (66.6) and IC- 559763 (65.0)

L- 4147 ( 47.5)

Pods/ plant (No.)

IC- 398094 (122), IC-560212 (118), IC-560332 (115) and IC-560206 (112)

L-4594 (72)

Primary branches/ plant (No.) IC-559870 (6), IC-318881 (5.00), IC-398688 (5.00), IC-560182 (5) and IC-278791 (5)

L-4594 (3.4)

TABLE 2: Promising accessions of lentil germplasm.

216 LEGUME RESEARCH

559763), high yield > 5 g/ plant (IC-559870, IC-318881, IC-398688, IC-560182 and IC-278791) andhigher number of pods/ plant > 112 pods (IC-398094,IC-560212, IC-560332 and IC-560206) wereidentified (Table 2). These accessions might besuitable for further crop breeding and adjustment indifferent cropping systems. The wild Lens taxa alsoexhibited substantial variations reflected by range,mean and coefficient of variation for more numberof pods/peduncle, more number of primarybranches/plant, early flowering and more numberof pods per cluster (Table 3). While comparing allthe four wild Lens taxa of lentil (L. culinaris sp.orientalis, L. culinaris sp. odemensis, L. nigricansand L. ervoides) (Fig. 1) for important agro-morphological traits, it was observed that L. ervoideshas good expression with respect to plant height,more number of pods/cluster, more number ofbranches/plant and seed yield/ plant (Table 3). Theresults indicate that there is a substantial amount ofvariation present in the wild gene pool of lentil.Hence selection could better be exploited for thesetraits in practical lentil breeding and genetic basebroadening (Gupta and Sharma 2006).

One of the most important factors for pooryield of lentil crop is frequent infestation with diseasesand pests.Three hundred accessions of cultivatedlentil were screened for rust and powdery mildew atregional research station Dhaulakuan, located in foothills of North Western Himalayas, where rust andpowdery mildew appear naturally in epidemic form.Twenty germplasm accessions (IC-560194, IC-560112, IC-560326, IC-560133, IC-560344, IC-560117, IC-560327, IC-560119, IC-560124, IC-560125, IC-560127, IC-560128, IC-560176, IC-560341, IC-560226, IC-560263, IC-560129, IC-560222, IC-560052 and IC-560305) were found freefrom rust showing their ability of resistance.Likewise, screening of fifty accessions of wild Lenstaxa for rust (Fig. 2) revealed four accessions (ILWL-10, IL WL-7, ILWL-14 and ILWL-81) were foundhighly resistant (scale 1); four accessions (ILWL -4,ILWL-46, ILWL-79 and ILWL-88) resistant to rustand five accessions (ILWL -12, ILWL-14, ILWL-15,ILWL-16 and ILWL-39) were resistant to powderymildew (scale 3).

During 2010 and 2011, two hundredaccessions of cultivated species of lentil (L. culinaris)were screened against root-knot nematode, M.incognita in pots as

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FIG.1: Specific traits identified in wild Lens species.

FIG.2: Screening against powdery mildew and rust diseases (1-9 rating scale) on Lens species.

described above. Screening result revealed differentlevel of resistance against the root-knot nematode(Fig. 3). The accessions, IC-559686, IC-559845, IC-560008, IC-560206, IC-560297, IC-560150, IC-201704 and IC-559996 were found resistant with< 10 root galls/root system. Similar response wasobserved in case of wild species also where oneaccession, IL WL 18 belonging to L. culinaris ssp.odemensis and two accessions, IL WL 14 and ILWL 27 belonging to L. culinaris ssp. nigricans,

showed resistance and moderately resistance to M.incognita, respectively.

Viral diseases in lentil germplasm could notbe noticed prior to the year 2009 under the weatherconditions of Delhi. They have become prominentduring the last three years. The prominent symptomswere chlorosis or mild mosaic and narrowing ofleaves along with stunting of plant growth. Electronmicroscopy revealed presence of flexuous rod-shaped particle with the size comparable to that of

218 LEGUME RESEARCH

FIG.3: Screening of wild Lens species (30 accessions) against root-knot nematode, M. incognita. a) Moderately resistant(IL WL 14); b) resistant (ILWL 18); c & d) susceptible (ILWL 56).

FIG. 4: Association of Potyvirus with the symptomatic leaf sample of lentil: a) chlorosis of leaves; b) mild mosaic, chlorosis,narrowing of leaves with reddening at tip; c) Small leaves with tip necrosis; d) small and flattened leaves and e) Electron

micrograph of lentil sample showing association of Potyvirus.

Potyvirus. At least two different Potyviruses viz. Beanyellow mosaic virus (BYMV) and Pea seed bornemosaic virus (PSbMV) were supposed to exist inthe infected plants (Fig. 4). Legume crops includinglentil, chickpea, fababean, pea, lupin and commonbean are infected naturally by more than 70 differentvirus species worldwide and the number of virusesinvolved continues to increase (Bos et al 1988;Makkouk et al 2003). However, at any particularlocation, a few of the viruses are of significanteconomic concern. Basic information on virusincidence and loss in yield and quality losses isnecessary to obtain an impact of diseases on them.Besides cultivation in the marginal lands, the otherreasons for poor yield of lentil are biotic and endseason abiotic stress. Majority of the germplasmheld in the gene bank have limited scope to contributein the development of modern cultivars particularlydue lack of their systematic characterization andevaluation. This is prerequisite for utilizing them inany crop improvement programme. The preliminarilyevaluation of the germplasm emanated some useful

information with regard to earliness, seed boldness,high biomass, lodging resistance and high yield. Pre-breeding /germplasm enhancement efforts may resultin the development of some useful material for cropimprovement in the near future. Wild taxa are alsoan excellent source of useful traits and therefore theyappear as important means for introgressingvariation for wide crossing. To escape end seasondrought, which is one of the major constraintslimiting productivity short duration germplasm offood legumes can be utilized. Under the changingclimatic conditions plant genetic resources can serveas an important source of invaluable genes foragronomic and physiological traits required tocombat adverse situations in the breedingprogrammes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTThe authors are grateful to the Director

NBPGR, New Delhi for providing necessary facilitiesto conduct the research experiments. The help andco-operation received from CSKHPKV ResearchStation Dhaulakuan is also acknowledged.

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