A study on morphological, physiological and yield alterations occur in Blackgram (Vigna mungo L.) Genotype LBG 17 resistant to powdery mildew

Abstract

Blackgram is a very important pulse crop grown in Kharif and Rabi seasons. It is especially cultivated for vegetable protein.  But the crop is easily subjected to fungal, bacterial and viral diseases. Of them fungal disease such as powdery mildew damage the crop worst leads to less yields.  LBG 17 is a hybrid variety of Blackgram produced to with stand to the powdery mildew. But the traits which are responsible for the tolerance and higher yields are not yet studied.  An experiment was conducted to study these changes at Botanical garden of Acharya Nagarjuna University, Andhra Pradesh, India. Morphological characteristics such as plant height, Root length, no of root nodules, shoot length.  Physiological responses like root dry weight shoot dry weight, total plant dry weight, leaf area, seed protein content, chlorophyll a, b and total chlorophyll content were studied.  In addition to these, yield parameters like no of clusters per plant, 100seed weight, seed yield per plant were studied in susceptible Nethiminumu, Chikkuduminimu and resistant LBG 17 black gram cultivars. The resistant cultivar LBG 17 is found to be exhibited high values in respect to morphological, physiological and yield characteristics.  However reduction was more prominent in susceptible cultivar than in resistant ones. Hence the results indicated that the changes developed through conventional plant breeding were responsible for the better performance of the LBG 17 in rice fallows than its parents Nethiminumu and Chikkuduminumu. Further it can be suggested that LBG 17 may be used as a source material for future studies involving molecular basis of resistance diseases.