Lentils are the focus of preventive genetic improvement research against pests

Generate cultivars adapted to the Center-South and Cerrado of Brazil, offering farmers an alternative to the dry winter period and, as a consequence, contributing to the increase in national production and the consequent reduction in imports, currently around 13,5 a thousand tons. This is one of the objectives of the lentil genetic improvement program developed by Embrapa Hortaliças (Brasília-DF), based on the pillars of precocity, productivity, high nutritional value, adaptation to mechanical harvesting and resistance/tolerance to diseases.

The program also contemplates the development of new cultivars to serve certain “niches”, which seek differentiated products, such as orange or darker lentils, generally smaller than those found in the Brazilian market.

The novelty among the lines of research that have been worked on by the program, and concerns preventive genetic improvement, aims to develop and make available to producers varieties resistant to agricultural pests of quarantine importance before they enter Brazil, such as fusarium wilt, caused by the pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lentis, one of the main fungal diseases that affect lentil crops.

According to researcher and general head of Embrapa Hortaliças Warley Nascimento, who coordinates the genetic improvement program for legumes (peas, lentils and chickpeas), this is a disease that has not yet been registered in Brazil, but is widely widespread throughout the world and present in neighboring countries such as Argentina and Uruguay.

“In this case, as it is not possible to test genetic resistance in the field or in a greenhouse, we used molecular markers that make it possible to identify the presence of the fw gene, which confers resistance to the fungus in lentil genotypes”, explains the researcher, who points out the molecular characterization of these accessions as “an important tool for defining promising genotypes for preventive genetic improvement with a view to obtaining cultivars adapted to Brazilian conditions”.

Fx Market

Strengthening research aimed at genetic improvement, according to Nascimento, can – in addition to consolidating the domestic market by offering alternatives to Brazilian farmers by expanding the range of potential economic gains – make the country an exporter of grain to Asia, for example.

“Brazilian agriculture has great potential to serve both the domestic lentil market – practically supplied through imports, mainly from Canada (around 90% of the imported volume) – and the commercialization of the surplus for export, which represents a valuable contribution from the productive sector to the balance of trade, benefiting the entire production chain”, maintains the researcher.