The use of characterisation data to establish the Indian mungbean core collection and assessment of genetic diversity

A representative core set of well characterised Indian mungbean collection was developed using information on passport, characterisation and evaluation data. Initial diversity groups of the accessions comprising the whole collection were formed based on six major crop growing zones and a separate group for a few accessions from diverse exotic sources. Principal components score strategy was found to be most useful in maximising the selection inertia than strictly random sampling in all individual groups. A total of 152 accessions were extracted and the validity of their representativeness was established by comparing its diversity with that of the whole collection. Shannon diversity index for qualitative characters and certain statistical parameters for quantitative variables were used for measuring the diversity of the accessions in the core set and that of the whole collection. The representative core set was subjected to multivariate analysis for assessment of genetic diversity and also the variation patterns for discriminating among accessions to facilitate the users for easy accessibility, and effective and efficient utilisation of the material.