Performance of Pigeonpea Varieties against Sterility Mosaic Disease (SMD) for Rainfed Regions of Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India

Pigeonpea is one of India's most important grain legumes, accounting for 90 per cent of global production. It is primarily farmed and consumed in poor nations, with India being a major producer. The area under Red gram crop in Prakasam district is about 1,00,000 hectares, which is under Rainfed cultivation during Kharif season, as a sole crop. The occurrence of Sterility Mosaic Disease (SMD) has resulted in significant yield loss over the last three years in Prakasam District. As a result, the current study was done to investigate the performance of seven varieties for the disease incidence and yield attributes that are suitable for rainfed region of Prakasam district were evaluated. Among the varieties evaluated, no disease incidence was observed in BSMR 736 (842 kg/ha), ICPL87119 (816 kg/ha) followed by TRG 59 with disease incidence of 8.67 per cent and yield of 756 kg/ha. The variety GRG 152 recorded disease incidence of 4.47 per cent and yield of 610 kg/ha. The variety LRG 105 recorded disease incidence of 26.33 per cent and yield of 546 kg/ha which was found to be moderately resistant. These findings are important for choosing resistant genotypes and can be used to validate and generate more SMD resistant pigeonpea genotypes in the future.