Resistance Sources for Powdery Mildew and Breeding Strategies for Improvement in Fenugreek

Abstract

Fenugreek is a multiuse and very valuable commercial spice crop farmed around the world, notably in Ethiopia, where it is valued for its seeds, tender shoots, and fresh leaves as well as its significant economic contribution. The yield of fenugreek crops adversely impacted by powdery mildew is the most damaging disease that exerts a substantial impact on the entire plant components and loss of its output. Appropriate breeding strategies such as resistance breeding, collection of germplasm, evaluation and conservation, mutation breeding, tissue culture techniques, and marker-assisted selection are therefore worthy sources of resistance to fenugreek powdery mildew disease as well as need to be implemented and applied immediately to minimize yield losses due to the incidence of complex crop pathogen. For culture, ovule culture, micropropagation, in vitro selection, and somaclonal variations, for example, are biotechnological methods that can be used in fenugreek breeding programmes to get varieties free from powdery mildew disease. New tools to open up new research avenues to create new genotypes with unlimited potential for the treatment of powdery mildew disease are also being used to improve and supplement conventional programmes for fenugreek enhancement. The application of resistance breeding, collection of germplasm, evaluation and conservation, mutation breeding, tissue culture techniques, and marker-assisted selection have an immense role in the production of fenugreek crops by reducing yield limiting factors in the crop, primarily for powdery mildew disease.