Moth bean [Vigna aconitifolia (Jacq.) Marechal] is a drought hardy orphan pulse crop. However, the information related to the identification and characterization of drought stress tolerance genes is very limited. Therefore, the present investigation was formulated to identified and characterized drought tolerant gene(s) from moth bean. Five genes were selected from available expression studies of moth bean and their expression pattern was assessed during time course experiment of drought stress in moth bean. During the time course experiment of drought stress in moth bean, the catalase1 (CAT1) gene was exponentially expressed in up-regulated manner. Thus, CAT1 gene of moth bean was identified as potential candidate gene and validated through Sanger’s sequencing. The genomic sequence CAT1 gene was named as VacoCAT1 and was further characterized using various bioinformatics tools. The VacoCAT1 showed an ORF with incomplete length of 213 bp which encoded 71 amino acids. The coding sequence of VacoCAT1 gene was shown a single exon due to incomplete nature of genomic sequences. The multiple sequence alignment of VacoCAT1 revealed the highly conserved region at 3’ site of the gene as compared to CAT1 gene of other crop species including legumes. The phylogenetic analysis of VacoCAT1 and CAT1 gene of other crop species including legumes revealed three clusters. The cluster VacoCAT1 gene showed close proximity with V. radiata CAT1 in cluster one of phylogenetic tree. The identified and characterized VacoCAT1 gene can be utilized as a genomic resource for enhance drought tolerance in susceptible pulses as well as other crops.

The present investigation was undertaken to study terminal drought tolerance on morphological and physiological characters in seven hybrids of pearl millet viz. GHB-558, GHB-732, HHB-67 improved, HHB-226, MPMH-17, RHB-173 and RHB-177. No irrigation was applied throughout the growth and developmental stages of the crop. The panicle length, panicle weight, grain yield per panicle, test weight, economical yield per plant, biological yield per plant and harvest index were recorded maximum in hybrid RHB-177 as compared to other hybribs. There was a significant variation among the hybrids for all the parameters recorded. Relative water content, membrane stability index and carotenoid content were also the highest in hybrid RHB-177 while chlorophyll content was the highest in RHB-173. On the basis morphological and physiological observations, it is deduced that RHB-177 has higher seed production potential than other hybrids considered to be the best suited. In comparative analysis, Hybrid RHB-177 was also found to be extremely tolerant; RHB-173 and GHB-558 tolerant; GHB-732, HHB-67 improved and HHB-226 moderately tolerant and MPMH-17 susceptible to drought stress.