Genetic base of advanced urdbean breeding lines developed in India as revealed by pedigree analysis

Development of high yielding varieties in urdbean has led to increase in area and production. But, this has narrowed down the genetic base in urdbean through the replacement of land races by a few improved varieties and, thus, need was felt to examine the genetic diversity in urdbean. Ancestor-offspring relationship, being used for studying the changes of genetic diversity during the course of cultivars improvement can be measured by relative genetic contribution. This parameter has been used as indicator of genetic diversity among genotypes in wheat, peanut, rice, soybean and lentil to provide information about the ancestor relationship of varieties. No such information is available in urdbean. The objective of this study therefore, was to (i) determine the number of ancestors present at least once in the pedigree, and (ii) estimation of relative genetic contribution of ancestors to urdbean genotypes bred during the last ten years.