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Characterization of sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) germplasm: a critique

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Abstract

Descriptor characterization of sesame accessions regenerated in Georgia, USA gave only a very limited picture of the wealth of sesame diversity, and an inaccurate portrayal of literature pertaining to the crop’s domestication. Background information is far richer than touched upon in Morris’s paper, as elaborated in this appraisal. Patterns of sesame’s genotypic diversity follow geographic lines. Data from parallel approaches: taxonomic, genetic and molecular, identify the wild progenitor of sesame from the taxon Sesamum orientale var. malabaricum Nar.

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Acknowledgments

I am extremely grateful to Tomoko Y. Steen, evolutionary and molecular population biologist and Research Specialist, Science Reference division, Library of Congress, who translated critical passages from several of Kobayashi’s publications from Japanese, for clarification, and to Richard Olmstead, Professor of Biology and Herbarium Curator, Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, who shared the results of his investigations of Pedaliaceae molecular phylogeny.

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    Dorothea Bedigian

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Bedigian, D. Characterization of sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) germplasm: a critique. Genet Resour Crop Evol 57, 641–647 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-010-9552-x

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