As the Australian mungbean breeding program matures and the large yield gains in recent varieties are exhausted, breeders will need to work harder and smarter to meet grower expectations. Future increases in productivity and reliability will come from understanding and exploiting disease resistance inheritance and the physiological components, both in existing breeding lines and newly imported germplasm from the World Vegetable Centre.
The domestic mungbean industry was founded on the introduction, release and later, breeding of adapted international germplasm. Combined with best management practice agronomy, mungbean was established as a high value opportunity crop to local growers. Release of the variety Crystal in 2008 revolutionised the industry lifting both yields and grain quality. Mungbean is now established as a key part of northern farming systems and Australia is recognised as a premium supplier of quality-assured product in competitive international markets.
Wider genetic diversity and new disease resistance sources identified by the National Mungbean Improvement Program over the last decade are coming to fruition in new higher yielding varieties scheduled for release in 2013 and 2014. Further yield gains are present in the breeding pipeline with improved foliar disease resistance packages in an adapted large-seeded background.
NMIP is one of few breeding programs to adopt new statistical techniques that incorporate pedigree information into the analysis of multi-environment yield and disease trial data. Separate identification of potential new varieties and the genotypes that make the best parents has improved the efficiency of the breeding effort.