Genetics, Agronomic, and Molecular Study of Leaflet Mutants in Mungbean(Vigna radiata(L.) Wilczek)

Mungbean plants generally have a relatively close canopy, thus a large amount of self-shading can reduce yield due to poor light penetration. Modification of leaflet type can affect leaf canopy and could alter seed yield. Two multiple leaflet mutants were obtained from gamma-ray irradiation and used to study the mode of inheritance related to leaflet types and to evaluate their agronomic features. The cross between large-heptafoliate leaflet with small-pentafoliate leaflet mutants produce all $F_1$ plants with normal trifoliate leaflets. The $F_2$ plants segregated in leaflet size and leaflet number into a 9:3:3:1 ratio of large-trifoliate: large-heptafoliate: small-pentafoliate: small-heptafoliate plants, suggesting that independent loci control leaflet size and leaflet number. Regarding leaflet number, the $F_2$ population can be classified into normal-trifoliate, small-pentafoliate, large-heptafoliate, and small-heptafoliate at the dihybrid ratio of 9:3:3:1. The gene symbols $N_1,n_1$ and $N_2,n_2$ are proposed to represent leaflet number. Since no plant was found with large-pentafoliate leaflets, we hypothesize that the $N_2$ allele expresses pleiotropic effect on both leaflet number and leaflet size. Another possibility is that an additional locus with S and s alleles controls leaflet size and S is tightly linked with $N_2$. The effect of multifoliate leaflet on yield and yield components was evaluated in four mungbean families each with four leaflet isolines under three environments. Averaging across the families and environments, the normal-trifoliate and large-heptafoliate lines gave higher yield than small pentafoliate and heptafoliate ones. These two large leaflet lines also had higher leaf area per plant than the other multifoliate lines. Therefore, the mungbean lines with a greater leaf area, which were likely to intercept more sunlight, gave greater yield. Three AFLP markers that were found to be linked to number of leaflets per leaf, corresponded to the N1 allele of the smallpentafoliate parent.