Browsing by Author "Missanga, Julius"

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Lablab (Lablab Purpureus L. Sweet): Current Developments in Breeding and Prospects for Drought Tolerance, Improved Yield, and Sustainable Production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
(Springer, 2025-05-17) Missanga, Julius; Venkataramana, Pavithravani
Drought is the largest threat to crop production, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Since we have a few crop species performing well in dry areas , knowledge on their responsesto drought stress could help us to identify the drought-tolerant genotypes. Lablab (Lablab purpureus L. Sweet) is the most drought-tolerant crop with a wide range of benefits as compared to other legumes. It is a farmers' resource crop with a multiple range of physiological, agronomic and nutritional values. It excels well in the sustainability of soil fertility and conservation agriculture. Farmers in arid and semi-arid regions rely on it for human consumption, animal feeding and income. Despite its potential, Lablab is still an underutilized crop in many countries, especially in SSA where the effects of climate change are most visible. The main reason why farmers in SSA are not benefiting much from this crop is a lack of improved varieties, particularly the high-yield , drought-tolerant varieties. The present advancements in plant breeding and their potential in research for drought tolerance, improved yield, and sustainable production in Lablab have become the main topic of this review study. The morphological, biochemical, and genomic potential of this crop have all been thoroughly examined in this study in order to endorse them for further breeding in drought tolerancee and yield improvement. With a small genome size (367 Mb) and a longer coding sequence (1276 bp) to exhibit more gene expression, Lablab becomes a crop of choice for the future sustainability in present effect of climate change. . Some of the ongoing research initiatives in Lablab suggest more screening of germplasm for drought tolerance especially at the seedling and reproductive stages so that to develop moisture stress-tolerant varieties . Additional research initiatives should also consider advanced gene analysis to assess DNA and RNA expressions on drought conditions and more studies on sequence-based markers-polymorphism contrasting for responses to the drought stress. It is finally proposed that the transferred quantitative traits loci (QTL) from other legumes could help to achieve the suitable varieties so that to shift Lablab to the industrial and economic crop in SSA.
Lablab (Lablab Purpureus L. Sweet): Current Developments in Breeding and Prospects for Drought Tolerance, Improved Yield, and Sustainable Production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
(Springer, Singapore, 2025-05-17) Missanga, Julius; Venkataramana, Pavithravani
Drought is the largest threat to crop production, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Since we have a few crop species performing well in dry areas , knowledge on their responsesto drought stress could help us to identify the drought-tolerant genotypes. Lablab (Lablab purpureus L. Sweet) is the most drought-tolerant crop with a wide range of benefits as compared to other legumes. It is a farmers' resource crop with a multiple range of physiological, agronomic and nutritional values. It excels well in the sustainability of soil fertility and conservation agriculture. Farmers in arid and semi-arid regions rely on it for human consumption, animal feeding and income. Despite its potential, Lablab is still an underutilized crop in many countries, especially in SSA where the effects of climate change are most visible. The main reason why farmers in SSA are not benefiting much from this crop is a lack of improved varieties, particularly the high-yield , drought-tolerant varieties. The present advancements in plant breeding and their potential in research for drought tolerance, improved yield, and sustainable production in Lablab have become the main topic of this review study. The morphological, biochemical, and genomic potential of this crop have all been thoroughly examined in this study in order to endorse them for further breeding in drought tolerancee and yield improvement. With a small genome size (367 Mb) and a longer coding sequence (1276 bp) to exhibit more gene expression, Lablab becomes a crop of choice for the future sustainability in present effect of climate change. . Some of the ongoing research initiatives in Lablab suggest more screening of germplasm for drought tolerance especially at the seedling and reproductive stages so that to develop moisture stress-tolerant varieties . Additional research initiatives should also consider advanced gene analysis to assess DNA and RNA expressions on drought conditions and more studies on sequence-based markers-polymorphism contrasting for responses to the drought stress. It is finally proposed that the transferred quantitative traits loci (QTL) from other legumes could help to achieve the suitable varieties so that to shift Lablab to the industrial and economic crop in SSA.
Lablab purpureus: Analysis of landraces cultivation and distribution, farming systems, and some climatic trends in production areas in Tanzania
(De Gruyter Open Access, 2023-01-01) Missanga, Julius; Venkataramana, Pavithravani; Ndakidemi, Patrick
Lablab is a multifunctional crop that is underutilized in Africa. This study was performed to assess Lablab landraces cultivation and distribution, farming systems, and some climatic trends in Lablab production areas in Tanzania. A socio-economic survey was engaged to locate the main production areas using Global Positioning System, while participatory research tools were used to assess farming systems, practices, and challenges perceived in Lablab production. Some weather data were collected to establish climatic trends in Lablab production areas. The study revealed a wide cultivation and distribution of Lablab landraces in five agro-ecological zones with some variations. These variations were influenced by market demand for Lablab in Kenya and its role in subsistence farming. Lablab was mainly produced for conservation agriculture and enhanced soil fertility (27.9%), marketing (22.1%), livestock feeding (21.5%), food during drought conditions (15.4%), traditional purposes (7.4%), regular consumption (3.8%), and other minor uses (1.8%) varied significantly across the zones (χ 2 = 37.639, p = 0.038). The farming systems included intercropping (59.0%), mono-cropping (31.0%), home based gardening (5.0%), crop rotation (3.0%), and relaying cropping (2.0%) with no significant difference across the zones (χ 2 = 15.049, p = 0.314). A wide range of farmers’ practices were noted in Lablab production zone-wise. Unavailability of improved varieties and poor market channels were the farmers’ key challenges in Lablab production. It was further noticed that Lablab was mainly produced in areas with dry conditions. Finally, it was suggested that effort should be enhanced to improve genetic resource conservation, value addition, and market channels to other countries while developing improved varieties in terms of high yielding and drought tolerance.
Lablab purpureus: Evaluation and Selection of Drought-tolerant - High-yielding Accessions in Dry Farming Systems Based on Drought Tolerance Indices and Multi- environmental Yield Trials
(Ankara University, 2023-03-03) Missanga, Julius; Ndakidemi, Patrick; Venkataramana, Pavithravani
Breeding for drought tolerance in crops requires responding knowledge on the moisture regimes of crops. This study was conducted to evaluate and select the drought tolerant - high yield Lablab accessions in the dry farming systems of Tanzania based on drought tolerance indices and field performance. Three sites from different agro-ecological conditions were selected for the study and each site involved trials with moisture stress-free (MSF) and early terminal moisture stress (TMS) conditions. The experimental design consisted of a randomized complete block design. The twelve accessions used in the study were the best genotypes selected from the former moisture screening experiment at the seedling stage. Data collections included days to 50% flowering and maturity, seed yield plant-1 and seed yield ha-1. The responses of the accessions to TMS conditions were quantified through ten developed indices whose correlation coefficients were computed from the mean of the seed yield plant-1 under MSF and TMS conditions. ANOVA and post-hoc tests were used to analyze the variation among the accessions and their field parameters as well as to compare their means, respectively. Based on this analysis, three indices; mean productivity, geometric mean productivity, and stress tolerance index were discovered with higher correlation coefficients (>0.5), and thus effective for selecting the TMS tolerant accessions with high seed yield plant-1 under both conditions. Through the combined rank mean method, D147, D363, HA4, D349, D352, D348, and D359 were generally selected as Lablab TMS tolerant accessions with high seed yield plant-1 across the evaluation sites. Although the significant difference (p<0.05) in field performance was noted among the accessions and across the sites, promising trends were found among the above selected TMS tolerant accessions. It is therefore suggested that, further evaluation of the above-selected accessions should involve farmers in their fields before releasing them as commercial varieties.
Phenotypic Characteristics of Lablab (Lablab purpureus L. Sweet) Accessions Compared Between Water Stressed and Non-Stressed Seedling Phases to Determine Stress Tolerant Accessions in Semi-arid Conditions
(East African Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation (, 2025-01-23) Missanga, Julius; Massawe, Joseph; Sahini, Mutabazi; Venkataramana, Pavithravani
Drought poses a severe threat to agriculture, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where the effects of climate change are most noticeable. There are few crop’ species that are able to resist drought stress. Despite the fact that Lablab is a multipurpose crop with high potential on drought tolerance, little research has been conducted to evaluate the crop's early responses to the drought stress in arid and semi-arid conditions. This study therefore aimed to identify stress-tolerant Lablab accessions by analyzing their phenotypic seedling traits under different moisture regimes (MR) in semi-arid conditions. In the study, seventeen potential accessions were subjected to the water stressed (S/ST) and non-stressed (NS) experiments in screen-house after germination. Two checks were considered in the experiments. Throughout the three repeated experiments, data collection involved several morpho-physiological traits including plant height, root length, shoot and root biomass, and relative water content (RWC), monitored every two days since withdrawal of water to the experiment. Seed weight (SW) was measured in triplicate before the beginning of the experiment. The Bartlett's and Levene's tests demonstrated (p > 0.05) normal distribution of the data. Using Gen-Stat and R software, ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey tests (p ≤ 0.05) were performed to examine the differences between the accessions across the seedling traits, days and MR. The findings revealed the significant difference (p < 0.05) in the traits in relation to the accessions, MR, and their interactions. Variation of the accessions on different traits as compared between the ST and NS experiments at day 7 was also proven significant. Through the ranking method, D349, D352, D363, D359, D147, HA4 and D348 were selected as the best drought tolerant (DT) accessions at seedling stage recommended for further assessment towards releasing the DT-high yield varieties potential in semi-arid conditions such as the central zone of Tanzania.
Recent developments in Lablab purpureus genomics: A focus on drought stress tolerance and use of genomic resources to develop stress-resilient varieties
(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2021-06-09) Missanga, Julius; Venkataramana, Pavithravani; Ndakidemi, Patrick
Drought is a major climatic challenge that contributes significantly to the decline of food productivity. One of the strategies to overcome this challenge is the use of drought-tolerant crops with a wide range of benefits. Lablab is a leguminous crop that has been showing high promise to drought tolerance. It is reported to have higher drought resilience compared with the commonly cultivated legumes such as common beans and cowpeas. Because of its great genetic diversity, Lablab can withstand high temperature and low rainfall, unlike other related crops. On top of that, it is grown for multitudes of purposes including food, forages, conservation agriculture, and improved soil fertility. To enhance its production and benefits during the present effects of climate change, it is crucial to develop improved varieties that would overcome the challenge of drought stress. In the past years, there have been several reviews on Lablab based on origin, domestication, characterization, utilization, germplasm conservation, some cultivation constraints, and conventional breeding with limitations on the genomic exploitation of the crop for drought tolerance. Conventional breeding is the major breeding technique for many Lablab cultivars. The integration of genomic, physiological, biochemical, and molecular approaches would be required to develop drought-tolerant cultivars of Lablab. In this review, we discuss recent developments in Lablab genomics with a focus on drought stress tolerance and the use of genomic resources to develop stress-resilient varieties.