Sesbania sesban is a multipurpose legume tree primarily cultivated for forage in tropical and subtropical regions of the world and is a cheap and good source of protein-rich forage for livestock. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) forage genebank holds large number of Sesbania sesban germplasm collected from different countries from around the world. As resources are limited, the direct use of the whole collection would be difficult and thus establishing a representative subset would be a useful approach to promote the wider adoption and use of the germplasm in the genebank. Accordingly, a representative subset containing 20% of the Sesbania sesban collection maintained in the ILRI genebank was established using genome-wide markers.

The subset contains 34 accessions collected from diverse geographical origins representing germplasm from low, medium and high-altitude areas, indicating its wide climatic representation. The inclusiveness of germplasm from different ranges of altitudes in the subset complements the diversity niche, representing the diverse agro-ecologies occupied by the species. The established representative subset can be used for multi-location evaluation to select the best performing genotypes for further uses.