2026/06/03 by Rahul Jahageerdar, Padmavati G. Gore, Jyotsna Verma +11 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Agricultural pest management studies #Botanical Research and Chemistry #Genetic and Environmental Crop Studies
paper · doi:10.1111/aab.70133
openalex publication_date 2026/06/03 · openalex created_date 2026/06/04 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/04
Abstract The genus Vigna includes several cultivated species, such as cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.), urdbean ( Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper), mungbean ( Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek), mothbean ( Vigna aconitifolia (Jacq.) Marechal), adzuki bean ( Vigna angularis (Willd) Ohwi and H. Ohashi), and ricebean ( Vigna umbellata (Thunb.) Ohwi and H. Ohashi), which face yield losses due to climate change, pests, diseases, and changing cultivation practices. It is crucial to characterise wild species for agro‐morphological traits and biochemical traits to identify promising accessions for future Vigna breeding programmes. The present study characterised 12 Vigna species (71 accessions) selected from the entire wild Vigna collection conserved in the National Genebank of India for morphological traits (20 quantitative and 28 qualitative traits) at two locations using an augmented block design (ABD) and eight biochemical traits. Significant differences were observed both within and between species in all quantitative traits. Eight distinct groups were identified by cluster analysis, and principal component analysis (PCA) captured 85.18% of the best variation among traits and accessions. Promising accessions were identified for key traits, viz., for early flowering EC1036864—24 days ( Vigna subterranea ); for the highest pod length IC259504—16.6 cm ( Vigna vexillata ); for the highest seed weight, EC1036860—81.53 g ( V. subterranea ); for the highest number of pods per peduncle IC553539—9.7 ( V. stipulacea ). A significant variation was also observed across various biochemical traits, and PCA explained 83.35% of the variation. Promising accessions were identified for iron content‐EC1170496—134.79 ppm ( Vigna oblongifolia ); zinc content—80.25 ppm EC1170517 ( V . unguiculata subsp. stenophylla ); and protein content—30.23% —EC1170492 ( V . oblongifolia ). These elite accessions had great potential to serve as donors for improving cultivated Vigna species, acting as a baseline for domestication, breeding, and improvement, ensuring the future utilisation of wild Vigna genetic resources.