National Grain Legumes Research Program,Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC),
Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal,
Narayangarh,Nepal
Mini-biography
Mr. Rajendra Darai received his B.Sc.Ag from Tribhuvan University Nepal and M.Sc Ag from CSAUA&T, Kanpur, India. He started his career in Natural History Society of Nepal in nature conservation and worked at Population and Ecology Research Laboratory, Rampur from 1995 to 1996 funded by Pennsylvania State University, USA. He was then admitted as a permanent Technical Officer in Jute Research Program, NARC, Itahari. After two years experience on jute, Mr Darai moved in 1998 to NGLRP, NARC, Rampur, where he has accumulated 8 years of experience on grain legumes. He participated in the International Workshop and Planning Meeting DFID-Mungbean Project held at Punjab, India in May, 2004. He was promoted Sr. Technical Officer in July 2004 and has been working in the grain legumes core group ever since. His work focuses on the genetic enhancement of soybean, mungbean, blackgram & lentil. Mr. Darai contributed a poster on the Grain Legumes Research Status in Nepal in the 4th IFLRC, 2005 at IARI, New Delhi, India. He received a month training on lentil improvement in 2006 at ICARDA, Syria. Finally, contributing to a salient attainment of NARC, Mr. Darai was directly involved in the release of four varieties of legumes — lentil Sital, Mungbean Pratikcha and Kalyan and Soybean Puja — adapted to the varied domains of the country.
Breeding strategies for Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) improvement for terai and inner terai of Nepal Rajendra Darai1, R.P. Sah
1, JB Sah
2 and D.N. Pokhrel
31. NGLRP, Rampur, Chitwan, NARC, Nepal
2. RARS, Parwanipur, Chitwan, NARC, Nepal
3. RARS, Nepalgunj, Chitwan, NARC, Nepal
rajendra5042@yahoo.co.ukMungbean {
Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek} is a short duration crop that fits well in various indigenous cropping systems of Nepal. The share of mungbean in the area of grain legumes is approximately three percent. As a human food, it is easily digestible protein pulse crop and attractive flavors, which is preferred by the consumers. Generally, mungbean is grown in rainy and spring seasons in Nepal. However, spring mungbean in rice-based system is the dominant pattern in major mungbean growing areas. It was estimated that about 8 lakhs ha of lands remain fallow after wheat harvest and before transplanting of monsoon rice in Nepal. Under such circumstances, this crop could be successfully integrated as a filler crop and provides an extra income to the farmers. It also improves soil health through recycling organic matter to the soil, which is ultimately beneficial to the succeeding crop. There is a vast scope for area expansion both under rice and maize based cropping pattern, if short duration synchronous variety with suitable production technologies are made available. Earlier the low productivity of released variety was due to the narrow genetic base.
Considering the facts, breeding strategies were designed to develop high yielding, better quality varieties with yellow mosaic virus (YMV) and cercospora leaf spot (CLS) resistance, and wider adaptability in Nepal. To achieve these objectives, Pratikchya and Kalyan were developed and recently released with the joint venture of NGLRP and FORWARD. Indeed, these lines were introduced from AVRDC, Taiwan in 1997. These lines are characterized as semi synchronous, resistant to YMV and CLS and adapted for the rice and maize based system.
Recent research efforts are focused on the genetic enhancement of mungbean for these cropping patterns. Two experiments in Observation Nursery (OBM) and Coordinated Varietal Trial (CVT) conducted over the years 2004/05 to 2005/06 have resulted in the identification and selection of a number of high-yielding and disease-resistant genotypes. The genotypes Bari mung (850 kg/ha), CN9-5 (815 kg/ha), VC1973A (Sc) (810 kg/ha) were found promising in terms of yield, attractive bold seed size and tolerant to YMV and CLS compared to the control pusa baisakhi (362 kg/ha) in OBN. Likewise, some lines were selected from AVRDC lines in 2005/06 like VC6173 B-10 (975kg/ha), VC6173B-11 (925 kg/ha) and VC6173A (900 kg/ha), which outperformed the controls Pratikchaya (275 kg/ha) and Kalyan (500 kg/ha). These promising lines will be promoted in multi-location evaluation trials. Similarly, the research results in CVT revealed that the genotypes VC 6370(30-65), VC6141-90, VC6369 (53-79) and NM54 produced higher yields than the standard check Pusa Baisakhi and local check Saptari local in both years. These landraces have medium bold seeds and will be promoted to farmers' participatory trials in the next season. Right now participatory plant breeding is the spirit of the time to grasp the potential yield and wider adaptability in accordance with the farmers' preference and local situation.
