Genetic diversity of mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) in iron and zinc content as impacted by farmers' varietal selection in Northern India.

From the last few years a debate has been continuing over the issue of malnutrition and hunger in the developing countries. The present article investigates the importance of participatory varietal selection in the development of a suitable cultivar of mungbean along with the nutritional content and the agronomic traits of the cultivars selected by farmers in participatory varietal selection. A combination of the conventional survey strategy, participatory varietal selection, molecular markers, and chemical analysis were used to carry out the study, and results revealed that the farmers have the capacity to utilize available genetic resources to manage disease, and they can identify the disease at early stages of plant development. The genetic diversity was studied using 23 inter-simple sequence repeat marker, which shows that the extent of genetic diversity ranges from 65% to 87%, while chemical analysis of selected mungbean cultivars shows a moderate amount of iron (3.9 mg/100 g) and zinc (2.5 mg/100 g).