Abstract

Fertility restoration is a crucial requirement for successful hybrid synthesis using CGMS system in crops. This investigation was carried out with the objective to explore the extent of fertility restoration for various cytoplasmic sources across different usable male parent sources viz., germplasm lines, advanced breeding lines and cultivars. One hundred and sixty eight CGMS based hybrids were synthesized by adopting L x T mating design with 12 CGMS lines and 14 testers. The hybrids were tested for fertility restoration by observing the pollen fertility status. The results indicated that 19 hybrids were restored out of 168 crosses evaluated accounting to 11.3 %. The extent of restoration varied from 9.5 to 14.3 % across the three cytoplasmic sources viz., A1, A2 and A4. Among the three sources of male parents selected, restoration was maximum in the germplasm inbreds as compared to advanced breeding lines and cultivars indicating need for intensive exploration across genetically and geographically diverse genetic resources. The implications of the results for augmenting hybrid breeding in pigeonpea and possible strategies for isolating new restoration sources through marker assisted selection are discussed.

Keywords: Redgram, Cytoplasmic-Genic male sterility, fertility restoration