www.IndianJournals.com Members Copy, Not for Commercial Sale Downloaded From IP - 14.139.94.1 on dated 30-Apr-2013 Indian J. Plant Genet. Resour. 26(1): 47-49 (2013) Identiication of Photosensitive lines in Black Gram and their Characterization 47 *Author for Correspondence: E-mail: ubabham@gmail.com Identiication of Photosensitive Lines in Black Gram and their Characterization Babu Abraham 1 *, KS Varaprasad 1 , M Vanaja 2 , N Sunil 1 , V Kamala 1 , N Sivaraj 1 and PR Reddy 2 1 National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), Regional Station, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-500 030, Andhra Pradesh 2 Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Santhosh Nagar, Hyderabad-500 008, Andhra Pradesh (Received: 23 November 2010; Revised: 24 August 2012; Accepted: 31 August 2012) One hundred and sixty accessions of black gram (Vigna mungo) germplasm were characterized and evaluated for 22 qualitative and quantitative agro-morphological traits during kharif (rainy) and rabi (post-rainy) seasons of 2005 and 2006. Two accessions, viz., IC343880 and IC426765 did not lower during the rainy season of 2005-06 and 2006-07, while they produced lowers and pods in the successive post-rainy season and, therefore, were identiied as photosensitive. These two accessions were studied for their qualitative and quantitative traits in comparison with the check varieties (LBG-20, T-9 and PU-19). A comparative account of morphological traits of these identiied germplasm lines with that of published literature on photosensitive released variety (LBG-17) are also provided. The uses of these potential genotypes in black gram improvement as also their alternative use as green manure and cover crop, are discussed. Key Words: Black gram, Germplasm, Photosensitivity, Vigna mungo Introduction Black gram [Vigna mungo (L) Hepper] is an important short duration pulse crop grown in many parts of India, in an area of about 3.18 m ha with a total production of 1.47 million tons with an average productivity of 461 kg/ha. Andhra Pradesh leads with the highest area and production among states with an annual production of 3.5 lakh tons from 4.97 lakh has with an average productivity of 704 kg/ha (www.dacnet.nic.in/pulses/ APR,06-07,pdf). Most of the varieties released are photo-insensitive and, therefore, can be grown during any time of the year. However, one photosensitive line (LBG-17) is known to exist in black gram, which lowers under short-day conditions (NORV database, www.nbpgr.ernet.in). There is a need to identify more photosensitive lines in order to have parental diversity for varietal development, keeping the location speciic requirements like combining resistance to numerous pests and diseases and other desirable traits (seed quality, plant type and photoperiod sensitivity) as reported in cowpea (Timko and Singh, 2008) Material and Methods One hundred and sixty accessions of black gram germplasm lines, collected during exploration from different agro-climatic zones of Andhra Pradesh, India, were grown at the NBPGR RS experimental farm (17 0 19’N, 78 0 23’E, 542 m above msl) Hyderabad, India, during rainy 2005, 2006 and post-rainy seasons 2005-06, 2006-07 respectively. The crop was raised in Augmented Block Design (ABD) with three checks viz. T-9, LBG-20 and PU-19. The crop was raised following standard package of practices (Anonymous, 1991). The qualitative and quantitative traits as per minimal descriptors (Srivastava et al., 2001) were recorded. Freely downloadable Web Agri Stat Package (WASP2) developed by ICAR Research Complex Goa, was used for statistical analysis (htpp://icargoa.res.in/wasp2.0/ index.php). Result and Discussion Wide range of variation was observed for days to 50% lowering during rainy (34 to 52 days) and post-rainy (46 to 60 days) seasons. Interestingly, two accessions, IC343880 (SKN-71) and IC426765 (BAR-62), did not lower at all during the rainy seasons of both the years. However, these two accessions exhibited 50% lowering by 46 and 49 days, respectively, during the post-rainy season and produced pods, indicating their photosensitive nature. The passport data of these accessions show that, accession IC343880 was collected from Pathapatnam (18 o 45’ N & 84 o 05’E), in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh during December 2001 (post-rainy crop) from farmer’s ield and IC426765 was collected from Mandasa