Exploration and Collection for Wild Relatives of Leguminous Crops in Tokyo, Saitama and Yamanashi Prefectures, Japan 16th -18th October 2012 TOMOOKA Norihiko ¹), SAKAEDA Hisao ²), MOTOYOSHI Kyoko¹), YAMAMOTO Masako¹), Ty CHANNA³), Tran Danh SUU⁴), AKIBA Mitsunoriリ, INOUE Junjiリand Duncan VAUGHANリ1) National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences , Kannondai 2-1-2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8602, Japan 2) Hinohara village, Tokyo 3) Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Center , National Road #3, Prateah Lang, Dangkor, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 4) Plant Resources Center , Ankhanh, Hoaiduc, Hanoi, Vietnam
Summary
A field survey was conducted in Tokyo, Saitama and Yamanashi, Japan, from 16 th to 18 th October, 2012. The main focus of the mission was to collect wild azuki beans ( Vigna angularis ). The resulting collection consisted of 28 azuki accessions (24 sites) including one weedy azuki accession, and 9 wild soybean accessions (9 sites). Particularly interesting fact was that the relative abundance of wild azuki was found so close to Tokyo and nearby urban centers. Wild soybean was not found as frequently as wild azuki. All the accessions collected were conserved at the NIAS genebank, Japan. These accessions will be grown and evaluated in 2013 and will become available for research, breeding and educational purposes. KEY WORDS : Tokyo, Vigna, Glycine, wild crop relatives Introduction Collecting wild crop relatives previously focused on areas far from urban centers. Therefore, until now, there had been a few efforts to seek relatives of wild azuki in and around the Tokyo area. Former explorations for collecting wild Glycine and Vigna germplasm were summarized in Appendix 1 and 2 of "Glycine Genetic Resources" in the proceedings of the 14 th NIAS international workshop (Vaughan et al., 2010). Trip itinerary is summarized in Table 1. At each collection site, seeds from matured pods were collected from several plants and were conserved as one accession.
Results and Discussions
A total of 37 accessions consisting of 27 wild azuki bean, 1 weedy azuki bean and 9 wild
soybean was collected (Table 2). Collection site for each accession is plotted in a map (Fig. 1). Pod length and number of seeds per pod for each accession were measured for well grown pods without pest and/or disease damage (Table 3). Detailed passport information is listed in Table 4.
Day 1.  (October 16, 2012, Saitama)
The first site visited was in a nature reserve that was part of a large flood plain park beside the river Arakawa (Photos 1 & 2, site 1a). The nature reserve was surrounded by a wire netting fence. Wild azuki and wild soybean were growing at the edge of the site. Wild azuki bean population was also found in an adjacent area and plants here had variation in pod color (Photos 3 & 4, site 1b). Other sites where wild azuki bean was growing were smaller than the first site and in a variety of disturbed open sites (Photos 5 & 6). One large population was found beneath a bridge over a river (Photo 7, site 5). In the evening of the first day, we found a site in the northwest of Saitama where both wild azuki bean and wild soybean were growing (Photo 8, site 10). A characteristic of the first day was that wild azuki bean seems to be more common (11 accessions collected) than wild soybean (2 accessions collected) in the areas of Saitama visited. However, based on the experience of the first author from previous explorations, the two species usually grow in a similar environmental condition, and wild soybean was often more common.
Day 2 (October 17, 2012, Tokyo)
Collections made on the first day were all at low elevation (<160 m). On the second day, the team explored Hinohara village and collecting sites ranged from 180 to 285 m. Two sites visited were community recreation/nature reserve sites where wild azuki bean was growing (Photo 9, sites 13 & 15). An accession collected at one site in an irrigation ditch seems to represent naturally growing escaped azuki bean population or weedy azuki bean population derived from natural hybridization between cultivated and wild azuki bean as the seeds were large and red in color (Photo 10, seed photo JP247266, site 14). In addition to the natural sites where wild azuki bean grows, the collecting team visited the mountain-side field where one of the author, Sakaeda has been  growing wild azuki bean (Photo 11). The wild azuki bean seeds were harvested for use in various dishes (Photo 12).

Day 3 (October 18, 2012, Tokyo and Yamanashi)
On the third day, all but the first two sites visited were in Yamanashi prefecture. All the sites were at a considerably higher altitude than the previous two days, ranging from 484 m to 698 m. At site 19 (alt. 510 m) in Yamanashi, two accessions of wild azuki bean were collected (Photos13 &14). Both wild azuki bean and wild soybean were found at sites 20 (Photo 15), 21, 23, 24 (Photo 16) and 25. In all the populations of wild azuki bean, seeds were mottled black in color. However, seed size of wild azuki bean varied greatly. For example, seeds of JP247284 were about twice as large as seeds of JP247278 and JP247280. In addition, some azuki bean accessions such as JP247275 had considerable variation in seed size within the accession. These differences in seed size might reflect introgression in the past. Glycine soja was collected at 9 sites and no special variation was observed in accessions of this species, although within accession seed size varied considerably. From this mission, a great deal of new information was gathered on the geographic distribution of wild azuki bean and wild soybean.  All the accessions collected are conserved at the NIAS genebank, Japan. These accessions will be grown and evaluated in 2013 and will become available for research, breeding and educational purposes. Vaughan D.A., Tomooka N., Kaga A., Isemura T. and Kuroda Y. 2010. Glycine Genetic Resources. In Proceedings of the 14 th NIAS International Workshop on Cenetic Resources "Genetics and Comparative Genomics of Legumes (Clycine and Vigna)". http://www.gene.affrc.go.jp/pdf/misc/international-WS_14_1.pdf
友岡憲彦ﾘ・酒枝尚雄²・元吉郷子ﾘ・山本正子ﾘ・Ty CHANNA 3ﾘ, Tran Danh SUU 9 ,秋葉光孝1 •井上潤二1 ,  Duncan VAUGHAN 1 1 1）農業生物資源研究所2）東京都檜原村３）カンボジア農業研究開発機構4 )ベトナム植物資源センター本報告は,東京都,埼玉県,山梨県におけるマメ科作物近緑野生植物遺伝資源の調査報告である.これらの地域は，大都市圏に近接するため，近縁野生種の生育地が少ないと思われており，これまでほとんど調査が行われていなかった．著者の一人である東京都檜原村在住の酒枝は，これらの地域で独自に調査を実施し，多くの野生アズキ自生地を特定・収集してきた．この自生地情報に基づいて，2012年10月16日～ 18日にかけて調査を行った．調査の結果，野生アズキであるヤブツルアズキ（Vigna angularis var. nipponensis）27点，栽培からの逸出かと思われる雑草アズキ1点，野生ダイズであるツルマメ（Glycine soja）9点，合計37点の植物遺伝資源を新たに収集・保存した．これらの遺伝資源は，2013年度につくば市の農業生物資源研究所において栽培し，特性評価，種子増殖を行い配布可能なアクティブコレクションとして生物研ジーンバンクにおいて保存する計画である.
Table 3. Pod length and number of seeds per pod