Snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): advances in genetic improvement

Citation:

Singh BK, Lal H, Ranjan JK and Singh B. 2016. Snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): advances in genetic improvement. In: National Symposium on Vegetable Legumes for Soil and Human Health (Singh B, Singh M, Rai AB, Singh PM, Prasad RN, Mishra GP, Singh BK, Ranjan JK, Devi J, Seth T, Nagendran K., Chaukhande P, Kumar R, Gautam KK, Gujjar RS and Kumar YB Eds). ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi, 12-14 February 2016, pp 125-136.

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

              Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), an important legume, is a rich source of protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre. The main categories of common beans, on the basis of uses, are dry beans (seeds harvested at complete maturity), snap beans (tender pods with reduced fibre harvested before the seed development phase) and shell beans (seeds harvested at physiological maturity) and. Snap bean is also known as French bean, garden bean, green bean, edible podded bean, string bean, fresh bean or vegetable bean. As the name implies, snap beans break easily when the pod is bent, giving off a distinct audible snap sound. The pods of snap beans (green, yellow and purple in colour) are harvested when they are rapidly growing, fleshy, tender (not tough and stringy), bright in colour, and the seeds are small and underdeveloped (8 to 10 days after flowering). After that period, excessive seed development reduces quality and the pod becomes fibrous, pithy and tough, and loses its bright colour. Snap bean seeds may also be used in dry static like the dry bean types. In that case pinto, kidney, pink, small red, etc. terms are used. In India, the dry bean type varieties are known as rajmash/rajmah, and snap bean named as rajmah phali in Hindi. Common beans display a wide range of growth habits from bush determinate to pole indeterminate types. Bush types are the most widely grown and are a relatively short duration crop; but on the other hand, in smallholder agriculture or in kitchen garden where land is scarce, labour-intensive high-yielding climbing beans getting popularity now-a-days. Dry bean is the largest pulse crop in the world with 23.60 mt of annual production grown on 29.29 mha area; and the top ten producing countries are Mayanmar (3.90 mt), India (3.63 mt), Brazil (2.79 mt), China (1.46 mt), USA (1.45 mt), Tanzania (1.20 mt), Mexico (1.08 mt), Kenya (0.61 mt), Ethiopia (0.46 mt) and Rawanda (0.43 mt). Moreover, snap beans’ global annual production and area is about 20.74 mt and 1.54 mha, respectively with maximum production in China (16.20 mt) followed by Indonesia (0.87 mt), India (0.62 mt), Turkey (0.61 mt), Thailand (0.31 mt), Egypt (0.25 mt), Spain (0.17 mt), Italy (0.14 mt), Morocco (0.13 mt) and Bangladesh (0.09 mt) [FAOSTAT 2012]. In India, it is grown on an area of about 1 lakh ha mainly in the states of Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North-East hills, Nilgiri (Tamil Nadu), hills of central India, Palni hills (Kerala) Chickmagalur (Karnataka) and Darjeeling hills (West Bengal). The tender pods of snap bean are good source of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), phylloquinone (vitamin K), β-carotene (vitamin A), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), Mn, K, Ca, P, Fe and omega-3 fatty acid. It is a legume crop, do fix some nitrogen but the N fixing bacteria are not active as with other legumes; therefore there is need to fertilize the field with nitrogenous fertilizer to harness the yield potential.

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Singh BK. 2014. VRFBB-91: A French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) germplasm for earliness. Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 5.

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Advances in genetic improvement of cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.).

Citation:

Singh BK. 2015. Advances in genetic improvement of cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.). In: Novel Genomic Tools and Modern Genetics and Breeding Approaches for Vegetable Crops Improvement (Pandey S, Singh B, Mishra GP, Karkute SG Eds). ICAR-IIVR Training Manual No. 66, ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi, India, pp 101-115.

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.), an important member of cole crops (Brassica oleracea), is one of the most popular vegetables worldwide. The word Cole seems to come from the abbreviation of the word ‘caulis’ meaning stem, and it was variously spelt as Kale (English), Kohl (German), Kool (Dutch), Kal (Scandinavian), Kaali (Finnish), Kaol and Kol (Breton), Chou (French), Col (Spanish), Cal (Irish), Cavolo (Italian), and Couve (Portuguese). The Cole crops are a group of highly differentiated plants and these are generally grown all over the world from tropical to arctic climatic conditions. The present concept of curd “pre-floral fleshy apical meristem” consists of a shoot system with short internodes, branch apices and bracts. Globally, cauliflower grows at the latitude 11-60 °N with average temperature ranging from 5-8 °C to 25-28 °C. In its vegetative growth period, it may withstand temperature as low as –10 °C and as high as 40 °C for a few days. Both in world as well as India, cauliflower follows cabbage in importance with regard to area (1258 and 433.9 thousand ha), production (22840 and 8573 thousand Mt) and productivity (18.2 and 19.8 Mt/ha), respectively (NHB 2014). In India, cauliflower is grown in the hills and the plains at altitude ranged from 11-35 °N and temperature ranged from 5-40 °C. Important states producing cauliflowers in India are West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Haryana, Chhatishgarh, Jharkhand, Assam and Uttar Pradesh (NHB 2014). It is also grown in northern Himalayas and in Nilgiri hills. The curds of cauliflower are harvested from September to February in northern Indian plains and from March to November in the hills of North and South India. Over the last 15 years, cauliflower’s acreage and production in India is increased continuously by 60.7% & 75.3%, respectively; but its productivity increased only 9.1%.

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Meghalaya Local: A Natural CMS based hybrid of cauliflower grown in Meghalaya

VK Verma, AK Jha and BK Singh

Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 6, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Meghalaya Local a long duration high yielding local cultivar of cauliflower is widely grown by the farmers in the East Khasi Kills, West Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and part of Ribhoi district in Meghalaya. Being a cross pollinated crop heterosis breeding is very popular in this crop. To produce the quality hybrid seed, the uses of male sterile line is very important. Two type of male sterile lines i.e. MS-I (with non-viable pollen) and MS-II (without stamen) were identified and tested from the local collection (Table 1).

Table 1. Yield and related traits of CMS lines

Traits	MS-I	MS-II
Days to curd initiation	115.3	117.0
Days to curd maturity	140.0	148.0
No. of leaves	23.7	26.0
Leaf weight (kg)	1.30	1.50
Leaf length (cm)	53.8	55.0
Leaf dia (cm)	25.0	28.2
Stalk wt.(g)	12.1	11.6
Marketable curd wt. (kg)	0.920	1.100
Gross plant weight (kg)	2.290	2.670
Harvest index (%)	40	41

VRFBB-91: A French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) germplasm for earliness

BK Singh

Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 5, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

French bean varieties developed by different organizations generally start pod setting during February to mid-March and very sparsely during first fortnight of December in North Indian plains. IIVR has recently identified a new genotype ‘VRFBB-91’ whose pods are ready to harvest during first fortnight of December. It has been collected from Jhum land of Kolasib, Mizoram. Plant growth is bush type, height ranged from 45-60 cm and bears pink colour flowers at 35-40 days after sowing. The pods of VRFBB-91 are green and bright in colour, fleshy, tender, straight, cylindrical, free from parchment and harvested usually about 9-12 days after flowering. The pod sieve size i.e. pods width (measuring through ventral to dorsal sutures) and pods thickness (measuring through sidewall to sidewall) both ranged from 0.82-0.88 cm, hence pod cross-sectional shape is round, a desirable trait of vegetable French bean. On an average, the weight and length of each tender pod is 6.6 g and 15.4 cm, respectively. The line bears 20-22 pods/plant and yields 140-150 g tender pods/plant in crop duration of 80-85 days. A pod contains about 6.7 seeds which is kidney shape, black in colour and 100 seeds’ weight is approximately 23.85. The yield potential (tender pods) of VRFBB-91 is 115-120 q/ha which is better than released varieties such as Kashi Sampann, Arka Komal, Arka Suvidha, Swarnaprya, Pant Anupma and Arka Anoop (25-50 q/ha).

Indian collections of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.): Genetic variability, inheritance, character association and performance

BK Singh and Y Ramakrishna

Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources 27 (3): 263-270, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Abstract

Twenty-seven genotypes of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) were evaluated to estimate the variability and inheritance pattern, to suggest suitable breeding strategies and to identify productive genotypes. Highly significant mean squares for all the traits indicated large variation among genotypes. High genetic gain through selection is expected for shoot length, leaf area, rhizome yield and dry matter yield because of additive gene inheritance; while curcumin accumulation in rhizome could be improved by selecting the heterotic seedlings as it is governed by non-additive gene. Furthermore, leaf length and curcumin content could be the most effective and reliable selection indices, as indicated by correlation and path coefficients, in identifying the curcumin-rich productive genotypes. A variety of North East India ‘Megha Turmeric-1’ excelled for the traits of commercial importance (dry matter recovery and curcumin yield). Conclusively, the genotypes of North East India were superior to other parts of India for most of the economic traits and potentially useful for genetic enhancement as well as for varietal improvement of turmeric.

Key Words: Curcumin; Heritability; North East India (NEI); Turmeric (Curcuma longa); Variability; Yield.

Leaf vegetables of Mizoram

Citation: 
Singh B K, Verma V K and Ramakrishna Y. 2014. Leaf vegetables of Mizoram. In: Climate Resilient Crops for the Future (Peter K V Ed.). NIPA, New Delhi, pp 383-404.
Email: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in
 
Mizoram, 23^rd state of India, is located between 21º58’ to 23º35’ N latitude and 92º15’ to 93º29’ E longitude which is surrounded by Tripura, Assam and Manipur in north frontier regions; Bangladesh in west; and Mayanmar in east and south. The undulated topography of Mizoram, known as Lushai hills during British period, has varied altitudes ranging from 21 to 2157 m above the mean sea level, annual rainfall of 2000-3200 mm, and mean monthly temperature of summer (monsoon) ranges from 14.6 ºC to 29.6 ºC. Besides having good rainfall; the vegetable production, including leaf vegetables, during winter period is limited by acute soil moisture stress caused by high rate of evapo-transpiration, almost no rain from November-March, non-availability of irrigation water and low water holding capacity of the sloppy land (Singh et al. 2011; Singh et al. 2013b). The terrain of Lushai hills is characterized by inaccessibility, marginality, fragility, ethnicity, rich bio-diversity and low crop productivity in general. The agricultural land in Mizoram is comprised of about 90% sloppy upland and 10% low land of valley (Singh et al. 2013a). The crops those potential are neither harnessed genetically nor grown commercially are commonly termed as underexploited crops. Most of them have remained either wild or semi-domesticated, and are traded and consumed locally. North-eastern states of India, including Mizoram, are one of the hot spots of plant biodiversity and therefore, considered as one of the richest reservoirs of genetic variability and diversity of various vegetable crops, herbs and spices (Yadav et al. 2009; Singh et al. 2013c). Leaf vegetables; also known as leafy greens, vegetable greens, salad greens, greens, salads or potherbs; are succulent plant leaves, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots, used as vegetable or for garnishing and flavouring of various food items. Usually, leaf vegetables are edible herbaceous, viny, shrubby or tree in growth habit; and are eaten with staples as main course or as supplementary food either in cooked, semi-cooked or raw form. These leafy greens are typically high in dietary fibre, minerals, proteins, vitamins, antioxidants, nutraceuticals and pigments; low in calories and fat; possess some medicinal values; and generate employment opportunities that is eventually options for “prosperity for the poor and health for all” by providing food, nutrition and income security.

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