Inheritance of resistance to Fusarium wilt (FW) disease caused by Fusarium udum was investigated in pigeonpea using four different long duration FW resistant genotypes viz., BDN-2004-1, BDN-2001-9, BWR-133 and IPA-234. Based on the F2 segregation pattern, FW resistance has been reported to be governed by one dominant gene in BDN-2004-1 and BDN-2001-9, two duplicate dominant genes in BWR-133 and two dominant complimentary genes in resistance source IPA-234. Further, the efficacy of six simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers namely, ASSR-1, ASSR-23, ASSR-148, ASSR-229, ASSR-363 and ASSR-366 reported to be associated with FW resistance were also tested and concluded that markers ASSR-1, ASSR-23, ASSR-148 will be used for screening of parental genotypes in pigeonpea FW resistance breeding programs. The information on genetics of FW resistance generated from this study would be used, to introgress FW resistance into susceptible but highly adopted cultivars through marker-assisted backcross breeding and in conventional breeding programs.
Keywords: SSR marker; gene action; inheritance; resistance breeding; validation; wilt.