An orphan crop comes home: how the mighty, meaty pigeonpea genome was decoded
- Tuesday, 31 January 2012 09:17
31 Jan 2012
A six-year, multi-institute collaborative project has successfully sequenced the pigeonpea genome. This result opens the floodgates for developing new varieties of the legume, which in turn will have a significant impact on the lives of people in resource-poor communities in the semi-arid regions.
The initiative was led by Rajeev K Varshney, GCP's Theme 1 Leader (Comparative and Applied Genomics), who, with others, elaborates on the many virtues and challenges of this courageous crop and the opportunities brought by access to its genome.