Development of Pant Urd 31: a high yielding and Yellow Mosaic Disease resistant variety of black gram (Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper)

Abstract

Yellow mosaic virus transmitted through whitefly has been a serious production constraint in black gram cultivation in India. During 1990s, the disease became a threat for urdbean cultivation in almost all growing areas of the country including southern peninsula and the central plateau. With the help of effective screening techniques tremendous progress has been made in identification of potential sources of resistance. Inheritance of resistance to this disease has been studied and the genes for resistance have been incorporated through hybridization. Sincere efforts to develop yellow mosaic resistant cultivars were made at G.B. Pant university of Agriculture and Technology, Pant Nagar. As a result Pant Urd 19 and Pant Urd 30 were released in 1981 and Pant U 35 in 1985. Subsequently several varieties resistant to MYMV have been released by other Institutions in India. However, none of the varieties were found suitable to entire country in different seasons. Pant U 31 due to its durable resistance to MYMV disease, photo-thermo insensitivity, short duration, dwarf type with balanced. vegetative growth and higher yielding ability gained popularity among farmers across the country which is evident from the breeder seed indent received from different black gram growing states of India. An outline for developing this cultivar will be ideal in devising further breeding strategies to breed widely adapted cultivars with durable MYMV resistance.