Genetic diversity and field performance of mung bean, faba bean and lentil genotypes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Grain legumes are grown for their high proteins and biological nitrogen fixation ability. In this study, 3 mung bean, 4 lentil and 20 faba bean genotypes from the Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia were evaluated for genetic diversity. There were significant differences in the morphological and molecular characteristics in the tested mung bean (Vigna radiata L.), lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) and faba bean (Vicia faba L.) genotypes. The sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) and amplified fragments length polymorphism (AFLP) markers exhibited a considerable genetic diversity among the tested genotypes of all three legume crops. The genotypes differed for plant height, primary branches, pod length, pods per plant, grain per pod and 100-grain weight. All the tested genotypes of mung bean, lentil and faba bean differed in the number of alleles. Maximum number of alleles per primer combination was 112 in mung bean, 72 in lentil and 126 in faba bean. Polymorphism percentage of all the tested genotypes of the mung bean and lentil was 100% and in faba bean, it ranged from 97 to 100%. Existence of genetic diversity of these tested mung bean, lentil and faba bean genotypes offers opportunities to exploit favourable alleles for use in the breeding program aimed at yield improvement.