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Review
. 2023 Jun 6:14:1179547.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1179547. eCollection 2023.

Moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia): a minor legume with major potential to address global agricultural challenges

Kanishka R C  1 , Gayacharan  2 , Basavaraja T  3 , Rahul Chandora  1 , Jai Chand Rana  4
Affiliations
Review

Moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia): a minor legume with major potential to address global agricultural challenges

Kanishka R C et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

Moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia) is an orphan legume of Vigna genus, exhibiting wide adaptability and has the potential to grow well in arid and semi-arid areas, predominantly across different eco-geographical regions of Asia, particularly the Indian subcontinent. The inherent adaptive attributes of this crop have made it more tolerant towards a diverse array of abiotic and biotic stresses that commonly restrain yield among other Vigna species. Additionally, the legume is recognized for its superior nutritional quality owing to its high protein content as well as amino acid, mineral and vitamin profile and is utilized as both food and fodder. Moth bean can play a vital role in sustaining food grain production, enhancing nutritional security as well as provide a source of income to resource-poor farmers amid rise in global temperatures and frequent drought occurrences, particularly in rain-fed cropping systems which accounts for about 80% of the world's cultivated land. However, this minor legume has remained underutilized due to over-exploitation of major staple crops. With the exception of a few studies involving conventional breeding techniques, crop improvement in moth bean for traits such as late maturity, indeterminate growth habit, shattering and anti-nutritional factors has not garnered a lot of attention. Recent advances in sequencing technologies, modern breeding approaches and precision phenotyping tools, in combination with the available crop gene pool diversity in gene banks, can accelerate crop improvement in moth bean and lead to the development of improved cultivars. Considering the recent surge in awareness about the development of climate-smart crops for sustainable agricultural future, collective effort towards effective utilization of this hardy, neglected legume is the need of the hour.

Keywords: climate change; crop improvement; genetic diversity; moth bean; stress tolerance; sustainable agriculture.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Highlights of the morphological features of Moth bean: A typical plant type with central branch and trailing primary branches (A), Inflorescence and pods in a branch (B), papilionaceous flower (C), semi-erect pods arrangement in peduncle (D) and seed shape and size (E). Seeds are placed in a 2.5 cm dish.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Graphs showing the cultivated area in million ha (A), production in million tonnes (B) and productivity in q/ha (C) of seven pulse crops, including Moth bean, in India from 2010-2020. [Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, India (eands.dacnet.nic.in); Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) (www.fao.org/faostat)].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution and locations of moth bean germplasm holdings across the world.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Taxonomic relationships among moth bean and other species of the genus Vigna [Source: Adapted from Takahashi et al. (2016)].
Figure 5
Figure 5
Variability in the shape, size and color of Vigna aconitifolia seeds conserved in the Indian National Gene bank, New Delhi.
Figure 6
Figure 6
A blueprint for the mainstreaming of moth bean to develop climate-smart varieties.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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