The ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research is playing a key role in advancing rapeseed-mustard research in frontier areas through multidisciplinary approach. The most significant achievements of this directorate include:

• A high frequency regeneration protocol for B. juncea cv. NRCDR 2 has been standardized using cotyledonary petiole explants. 15 independent putative transgenic events have been developed in Indian mustard var. NRCDR-2 with TvD1 gene construct via Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated gene transfer technique. A hp RNAi construct was engineered by using mannose 6-phosphate reductase (M6PR) gene of Orobanche for development of Orobanche tolerance in mustard.
• Molecular characterization of 66 B. juncea and 28 B. rapa varieties have been carried out using SSR markers and total 45 SSR markers validated for inter-specific hybrids between B. rapa x B. spinescences. Three PCR based IP markers (At5g41560, At5g41940 and At2g36360) closely linked to white rust resistance were validated in 26 genotypes of Indian mustard for marker assisted selection. Population structure of a set of (79) diverse Indian mustard genotypes were studied by using 50 polymorphic EST-SSR primers.
• 47,962,057 high quality expressed sequence reads were generated using Illumina MiSeq paired-end sequencing technology. These reads were assembled into 45,280 unigene contigs from which a total of 4,108 perfect SSR loci of >10 bp were identified. Primer pairs for 460 EST-SSRs were commercially synthesized and validated on B. juncea and its wild relatives.
• 15 independent putative transgenic events have been developed in Indian mustard var. NRCDR-2 with TvD1 gene construct via Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated gene transfer technique. Molecular characterization of putative independent transgenic events of B. juncea var. NRCDR-2 had been carried out with PCR using TvD1 gene specific primers.
• Eleven accessions showing heat tolerance at seedling stage were genotyped using 106 SSR primers.
• Total 45 SSR markers validated for inter-specific hybrids between B. rapa x B. spinescences.
• 4100 EST based SSRs were identified. Primer pairs for 460 EST-SSRs were commercially synthesized.