In a major breakthrough, Indian farm scientists have decoded the genome of pigeon pea or Arhar dal, which will help in developing its new varieties and enhancing productivity of the pulse crop. The team was led by Nagendra Kumar Singh from ICAR's National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology at New Delhi.

He said that a group of 31 scientists from Indian Council of Agriculture Research, state agricultural universities and Banaras Hindu University decoded the genome of arhar.

An ICAR statement said that this is the first plant genome sequenced entirely through a network of Indian institutions and it will provide highly valuable resource for variety improvement of pigeon pea.

Availability of the Arhar genome sequence will accelerate development of new varieties and hybrids with enhanced productivity.