{"id":369103,"date":"2026-08-07T14:36:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=369103"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:06:58","slug":"asha-variety-of-pigeonpea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/asha-variety-of-pigeonpea\/","title":{"rendered":"Asha Variety of Pigeonpea"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-box-green\">\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>: In a major scientific breakthrough Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has developed India&#8217;s first fully annotated telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference genome of pigeonpea (<em>Cajanus cajan\u00a0<\/em>L. Millsp.) variety &#8216;Asha&#8217;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"red-h2-box\">About Asha Variety of Pigeonpea<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 251px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/scontent.fdel1-3.fna.fbcdn.net\/v\/t39.99422-6\/764661327_1014498394686362_8105140717429613854_n.png?stp=dst-jpg_tt6&amp;cstp=mx1080x1350&amp;ctp=s640x640&amp;_nc_cat=104&amp;_nc_map=urlgen_bucketless&amp;ccb=1-7&amp;_nc_sid=127cfc&amp;_nc_ohc=KydX_qyD4aIQ7kNvwHEj176&amp;_nc_oc=AdprnnOfes1etQDBfMPNVirp7a0YYorvh70varAsKwRaZ0E0pFu6vhZA1fmgee08LUu6DOf1qQyjUUWXVos0qZzG&amp;_nc_zt=14&amp;_nc_ht=scontent.fdel1-3.fna&amp;_nc_gid=qKg-n9udZ91fi8_1mSm1TQ&amp;_nc_ss=7b289&amp;oh=00_AQFioYR6r9Z6-zepyn4ujZJ_jFmDTgp3SNBf2Ntehm31_w&amp;oe=6A7B2594\" alt=\"Asha Variety of Pigeonpea\" width=\"251\" height=\"314\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: AIR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/indian-council-of-agricultural-research-icar\/\">ICAR<\/a> has developed <strong>India&#8217;s first fully annotated telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference genome of <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/pigeon-pea\/\">pigeonpea<\/a><\/strong><strong>\u00a0variety &#8216;Asha&#8217;<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>It is<strong> popularly known<\/strong> as <strong>\u2018Arhar\u2019 or \u2018Tur\u2019.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>one of India&#8217;s most important pulse crops<\/strong> and a major source of dietary protein.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Botanical name: <\/strong>Its botanical name is <strong>Cajanus cajan L. Millsp.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Developments:<\/strong> In 2011, I<strong>CAR\u2013National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, had published the world\u2019s first draft genome of pigeonpea variety \u2018Asha\u2019,<\/strong> the first crop genome to be sequenced entirely in India.\n<ul>\n<li>An improved draft genome was published in 2017.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Features:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The newly developed T2T genome sequence <strong>contains 752.65 million base pairs of DNA assembled into 92 contigs,<\/strong> providing a complete representation of all 11 chromosomes of pigeonpea.<\/li>\n<li>A comprehensive <strong>genome annotation identified 36,557 genes, producing 48,008 mRNAs<\/strong> (coding sequences).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Benefits:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It will serve as a <strong>valuable national genomic resource for advanced gene and pangenome analyses,<\/strong> discovery of genes associated with important agronomic and nutritional traits, and the <strong>application of molecular breeding and genome-editing technologies. <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is also expected<strong> to accelerate the breeding of climate-resilient, high-yielding and nutritionally enriched pigeonpea varieties,<\/strong> thereby strengthening the country&#8217;s pulse improvement programme.<\/li>\n<li>It will also provide a<strong> major impetus to research and innovation, benefit scientists, breeders and farmers, and contribute<\/strong> to enhanced productivity, improved farmer livelihoods, and India&#8217;s food and nutritional security.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News: In a major scientific breakthrough Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has developed India&#8217;s first fully annotated telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference genome of pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan\u00a0L. Millsp.) variety &#8216;Asha&#8217;. About Asha Variety of Pigeonpea ICAR has developed India&#8217;s first fully annotated telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference genome of pigeonpea\u00a0variety &#8216;Asha&#8217;. It is popularly known as \u2018Arhar\u2019 or&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/asha-variety-of-pigeonpea\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Asha Variety of Pigeonpea<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,3127,12039],"tags":[11872,3590],"class_list":["post-369103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-economy","category-knolls","tag-9pm-daily-factly","tag-pib","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}