This study was conducted to determine the opinions of the farmers producing dry bean landraces (DBL) at the regional level of Turkey (eight provinces). In total, 140 questionnaire forms were filled by DBL producers. The population and then the sample size were determined according to 2016-year-preliminary-study. The capital structures of the farms according to the production types were evaluated using the Five-Capital-Model approach, and differences were tested by parametric and non-parametric statistical methods. The study showed that 37.86% of the DBL producers produce as the home-garden-type while 62.14% of them as the field-type, which is larger than 0.1 ha. While home-garden-type producers majorly produce for their own family needs, commercial ideas and concerns are at the forefront for field-type producers. While field-type producers have higher values in terms of five capitals, home-garden-type producers move within a more traditional way of production. More than half of the producers indicate that they will continue to produce DBL; this ratio is higher in home-garden-type producers. This indication of approximately 25% of both types of producers wherein their children will continue to produce DBL, there is a need for more human labour, efficiency and profitability concerns, production mostly by the elderly population increasing the risk of future depletion in DBL-genetic resources. This calls for more efforts to increase the awareness among the young population on the importance and protection of genetic resources and to make special policies for the protection of genetic resources by policy makers and develop models based on genetic resources.

Variety selection from locally adapted crops is the major climate change adaptation strategy of farming communities. There are several justifications for re-thinking for the sustainable use of crop biodiversity in our breeding programs. Thirty-one durum wheat farmers' varieties (FVs), together with five improved check varieties, were characterized in Tigray during 2014 and 2015 main cropping seasons. The genotype effect explained most of the variations in measured traits, which enabled us to identify superior and stable genotypes for wider adaptation as well varieties with more local adaptation. The genotypes and test locations imposed a highly significant (P < 0.001) effect on both phenological and quantitative traits. A yield advantage of 14.3% was obtained from top performer FV over top performer improved variety, Asassa. Of the tested FVs, 27.8% were superior for grain yield (GY) than improved varieties and 19.4% of these superior FVs were more stable and adaptable than the improved varieties. Besides giving higher GY with spatial stability, they qualify for industrial requirements with high-grain protein (>13%) and gluten (>33%) contents. FVs such as G10, G16, G21, G22 and G30 have wider adaptability and are suitable for production in all tested areas. As outcome of this study, two superior FVs, G10 (208304) and G30 (8208), were nationally released for commercial production for their productivity, stability and grain quality. Utilizing the diverse durum wheat FVs can effectively improve productivity and adaptability. Wheat breeders need to revisit these resources to improve adaptation of wheat production to the changing climatic conditions.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is an important resource to the national economy and it is essential to assess the genetic diversity in existing sorghum germplasm for better conservation, utilization and crop improvement. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of genetic diversity within and among sorghum germplasms collected from diverse institutes in Nigeria and Mali using Single Nucleotide Polymorphic markers. Genetic diversity among the germplasm was low with an average polymorphism information content value of 0.24. Analysis of Molecular Variation revealed 6% variation among germplasm and 94% within germplasms. Dendrogram revealed three groups of clustering which indicate variations within the germplasms. Private alleles identified in the sorghum accessions from National Center for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, Ibadan, Nigeria and International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Kano, Nigeria shows their prospect for sorghum improvement and discovery of new agronomic traits. The presence of private alleles and genetic variation within the germplasms indicates that the accessions are valuable resources for future breeding programs.

Rice blast caused by the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae, is one of the most devastating diseases in rice production worldwide. Information on rice varieties with the blast disease resistance gene is important for rice cultivar development. This study identified rice blast resistant genes in 226 rice cultivars including 203 Thai landrace rice cultivars (19 upland rice cultivars from the North, 99 lowland rice cultivars from the Northeast, 45 floating rice cultivars from the Northeast and 40 cultivars from the South), 21 recommended rice varieties and two susceptible varieties ‘KDML105’ and ‘Nipponbare’ by using gene-specific markers for the blast resistant genes Pid3, Pi54 and Pigm. Results showed that 159 cultivars have at least one resistant gene and four cultivars have all three resistant genes. These results indicate that Thai landrace rice is a valuable source of rice blast resistant genes for rice breeding programmes.

Silphium spp. have garnered interest in Europe as a bioenergy crop and in North America as a perennial oilseed crop. However, very little has been done at this early stage of domestication to characterize wild collections for many key characteristics, including important oilseed traits. The objective of this work was to develop a basic understanding of how biogeography and associated population genetic forces have shaped seed phenotypes in plant collections across the native range of Silphium integrifolium Michx. (Asteraceae: Heliantheae), the primary domestication candidate for oilseed use. A collection of 53 accessions was grown in a common environment in Salina, KS, which is a location well within the native range of the species in central North America. Plants from each collection site were randomly mated by hand to produce seed representative of each accession, and the seeds subjected to seed dimensional trait, oil content and oil composition analyses. Kernel width varied along a latitudinal cline of collection site, while kernel length varied across a longitudinal cline. Palmitic and linoleic acids were inversely correlated with each other and varied along a longitudinal cline of the collection site. The results indicate that accessions collected from more southwesterly sites tended to have larger seed and those from more westerly sites had higher linoleic acid content and lower palmitic and myristic acids, which are all desirable phenotypes for an oilseed Silphium.

The rice-based agriculture of the Indian subcontinent has been interwoven in the rich socio-cultural fabric of the country. Of which, bio-culturally diverse North-Eastern states nurture thousands of landraces with poorly tapped agronomic traits. In the present study, 27 standard microsatellite data from 171 rice landraces from six states were analysed to understand their genetic diversity and population structure. Further, combining with a global dataset, we determined subpopulation identity using both model-based and multivariate analyses to uncover their history. We found moderate to high genetic diversity and high differentiation [standardized G”ST = 0.57]. The AMOVA partitioned overall variance into within population (75%) and among population (25%). The landraces from six states remained at various degrees of differentiation (pairwise FST = 0.09–0.41). We have detected a preponderance of aus-type in a majority of aromatic landraces. Rests were japonica and admixed with a little representation of indica. The presence of aromatic aus probably implied assimilation into local culture from the primary aus growing region of Bangladesh and India. Likewise, the arrival of japonica may stem from the exchange of goods among neighbouring dynasties via Southern and Southwestern Silk routes. The shared ancestry may reflect a merger of two ancient cultures. Our analyses also uncovered the existence of aus-type short and medium grain aromatic rice predicting an origin of aroma in aus subpopulation. Collectively, it demonstrated the diversity and divergent history of the rice landraces have been shaped by various socio-cultural interactions operative over time and space.

Dongxiang common wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff., DXWR) is an important genetic resource for the improvement of cultivated rice. For the past three decades, great achievements have been made in the field of molecular marker development. Although structural variations (SVs) had been studied between DXWR and Nipponbare (Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica), the development and application of SV markers in DXWR has not been reported. In this study, based on the genome-wide SV loci, we developed and synthesized a total of 195 SV markers that were evenly distributed across the 12 rice chromosomes. Then, these markers were tested for their stabilities and polymorphisms. Of these 195 markers, 147 (75.4%) were successfully amplified and displayed abundant polymorphisms between DXWR and Nipponbare. Meanwhile, through the genotyping of 20 rice varieties from 13 countries and areas, we concluded that these SV markers have a wide application prospect in the analysis of cultivated rice. Therefore, these molecular markers greatly enrich the number of markers available for DXWR, which will facilitate genomic research and molecular breeding for this important and endangered germplasm resource.

Silene ciliata (Caryophyllaceae) is a key species to test evolutionary hypotheses in a global warming context. The recent advances in Next Generation Sequencing technologies can help in providing clues about climate-mediated local adaptation. In the present study, we analysed the full transcriptome of six individuals of S. ciliata from Central Spain, by aligning it with the transcriptome of S. latifolia. We aimed (a) to identify Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in the transcriptome of the species, (b) to describe the biological function of the polymorphic genes expressed and (c) to identify loci that may be involved in local adaptation processes at optimal and marginal populations of the species. We identified a total of 147,118 SNPs distributed throughout 12,688 sequences. The number of polymorphic sequences annotated was 8023. One hundred thirty sequences containing polymorphisms strongly associated with optimal and marginal conditions were selected. Gene ontology searches were successful for 118, and many of these were related to responses to stress (n = 19) and abiotic stimulus (n = 16). Genomic data generated provide a starting point for further research on the identification of candidate genes related to local adaptation and other processes in the species.

Cytological understanding is an important parameter to understand the genetic architecture of yam bean. The ploidy level and genome size of two cultivated species of yam bean (Pachyrhizus erosus and P. tuberosus) were estimated using flow cytometric analysis of young leaf tissue, with propidium iodide as a fluorescent dye. Six genotypes of P. erosus and three genotypes of P. tuberosus were analysed. Rice (Oryza sativa cv. Nipponbare) and Mung bean (Vigna radiata cv Berken) were used as internal reference standards. Variation of 2C nuclear DNA content among the six P. erousus lines was 4.18%, ranging from 1.17 to 1.22 pg, whereas only 1.8% variation was observed among the three P. tuberosus lines, which ranged from 1.07 to 1.09 pg. Moreover, it was found that the nuclear DNA content of P. tuberosus was lower than that of P. erosus. The result of the flow cytometric analysis showed that all the species were diploid (2n = 2x) and coefficient of variation (CV%) of all the accessions of the two species was less than 3.5%. This is the first report of ploidy analysis and genome size estimation of the leguminous underutilized tuber crop yam bean using flow cytometry. This result will be helpful for yam bean genome sequencing and crop improvement programmes.

We assessed inheritance of resistance to sugarcane brown rust (Puccinia melanocephala) in selfing F1 populations of wild sugarcane germplasm Erianthus rockii ‘Yundian 95-19’ and E. rockii ‘Yundian 95-20’. We tested parent and selfing F1 individuals for the brown rust resistance gene, Bru1, that has been shown to confer resistance to brown rust in sugarcane. The Bru1 gene was not detected in E. rockii ‘Yundian 95-19’, E. rockii ‘Yundian 95-20’ or their selfing F1 individuals, and we found there was segregation of resistance in the two selfing F1 populations (segregation ratio: 3:1). The results confirmed resistance in E. rockii ‘Yundian 95-19’ and E. rockii ‘Yundian 95-20’ to sugarcane brown rust is controlled by a novel, single dominant gene.

Chickpea is one of the most important nutritious grain legume crops in the world. There is limited information available on micro- and macro-nutrients in chickpea. Therefore, an effort was made to evaluate a set of 40 chickpea genotypes belonging to all the gene pools including cultivated (Cicer arietinum) as well as wild, Cicer reticulatum from the primary gene pool, Cicer echinospermum from the secondary gene pool and Cicer microphyllum from the tertiary gene pools. Concentration in the seed of the micro- (Zn, Fe, Cu and Mn) and macro-nutrients (Ca, Mg and K) was studied. Substantial variation was observed among different gene pools for the concentration of all the nutrients. The cultivated chickpea exhibited higher seed Cu, Mn, Mg and Ca than wilds indicating positive domestication effect, whereas wild crop relatives were found to have higher levels than cultivated chickpeas for seed Zn, Fe and K concentrations. While comparing desi-type chickpeas with Kabulis, it was revealed that desi types possessed more Zn, Cu, Ca and Mg than Kabulis but reverse was true for seed Fe, Mn and K. Among different desi types (desi brown, desi green and desi black), desi brown types were generally associated with higher mineral nutrient levels. The present study led to the identification of most promising genotypes for different seed micro- and macro-nutrients. These promising lines may serve as genetic resources useful in gene discovery programmes and for alleviating malnutrition or hidden hunger in the developing world.