Interspecific hybridization between Cajanus cajan and Cajanus cajanifolius
Venkatesan Thiruvengadam, and Arunachalam Muthiah
Interspecific hybridization between five Canajus cajan genotypes viz., ICPL 87, CORG 9302, CORG 5, TAT 93- 47 and AS 46 and the wild species C. cajanifolius was attempted. Successful pod set was observed in direct crosses involving C. cajan as ovule parent and C. cajanifolius as pollen parent while the reciprocal crosses failed to set pods. The only surviving F1 of ICPL 87 × C. cajanifolius was vigorous in growth and exhibited intermediate leaf and flower morphology with predominance of C. cajanifolius plant type. Chromosome pairing was rather irregular in the F1 hybrid with loose pairing, univalents, quadrivalents and abnormalities like laggards, stickiness, bridges, precocious separation and non-synchronization of the genomes. Pollen fertility of the hybrid was low and occurrence of triads was noticed. The partial homology coupled with seed set suggested the possibility of incorporating traits of economic importance such as pest resistance from C. cajanifolius into C. cajan.