10.5937/ratpov51-5488 = Legume improvement program at AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center: Impact and future prospects

Abstract

Legume breeding at AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center currently focuses on two crops: mungbean (Vigna radiata [L.] Wilzcek var. radiata) and vegetable soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merrill). High yielding, short duration mungbean varieties bred by AVRDC in conjunction with 29 national partners across Asia revolutionized the industry over the last two decades and increased global production by more than a third. New sources of resistance to mungbean yellow mosaic disease have been identified in related species such as black gram (Vigna mungo [L.] Hepper) and are being introgressed into elite mungbean lines. Improving protein quality by transferring high methionine and bruchid resistance traits from black gram is in progress. Selection of local land races and transfer of desirable traits from grain soybean are being used to develop vegetable soybean with higher pod yield, improved seed size and colour, higher sugar content, basmati flavour, less sensitive to photoperiod and temperature.