Raising the Efficiency‐Bar of Pod Borer Resistance in Pigeonpea ( Cajanus cajan L. Millsp) by Amending the Screening and Breeding Technologies

ABSTRACT Pigeonpea ( Cajanus cajan ) is extensively grown under subsistence agriculture in rainfed dry areas. Despite its importance in nutritional security and decades of research, yield of this pulse has remained unacceptably low and it is attributed to various stresses and research inefficiencies. Among the devastating stresses, Helicoverpa armigera is the main wrongdoer across all the global pigeonpea growing ranges. The conventional pod borer resistance breeding efforts made so far have accomplished a little to mention. Pigeonpea breeders believe that polygenic control of pod borer resistance, lack of stable resistant resources and inefficient field screening technology are the prime causes for this failure. Besides these, various unmeasurable interactions among host plants, pod borers, climatic conditions and crop growth factors further add to this utterly difficult task. To understand and overcome this deep‐rooted problem of breeding pod borer‐resistant cultivars, the authors after reviewing critical research areas, propose some amendments for improving the available technologies related to (i) pod borer screening, (ii) breeding methods, (iii) application of genomics tools, (iv) using transformation for transferring the pod borer resistance genes from wild species and (v) speed breeding to reach rapid homozygosity in the resistant selections. The authors also believe that the proposed amendments, particularly in pod borer screening technology, would be able to rejuvenate the efforts to breed high‐yielding pod borer‐resistant pigeonpea cultivars.