By Ojiewo OC, Kemal S, Tadese N, Bekele D, Eshete M, Odeny DA, Ganga-Rao NVPR, Monyo ES, Gaur PM and Varshney RK

Science with a human faceAbout ICRISAT: www.icrisat.orgICRISAT’s scientific information: http://EXPLOREit.icrisat.org

Oct

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Screening of early maturing chickpea for resistance to Ascochyta blight and Fusarium wilt

Background• Chickpea Ascochyta blight (AB) and Fusarium wilt (FW) can

cause up to 100% loss (Figure 1) • MostICRISAT-derivedvarietiesareresistanttoFW• Onekabulivariety‘Arerti’isresistanttoABbutsusceptible

to FW• There is no AB resistant desi variety in ESA • More than 90% of chickpea produced in ESA are desi types• Farmers are very vulnerable to blight outbreak, leading to

pesticideabuse,increasedcostofproductionandhealthand environmental hazards

Figure 1. A: Sections of desi chickpea field wiped out by AB; B: Sections of kabuli chickpea field attacked by FW at Minjar, Central Ethiopia.

B. Kabuli chickpea

A. Desi chickpeaFigure 2. Screening of chickpeas for wilt resistance in FW sick plot at DZARC, Ethiopia.

Figure 3. Screening & evaluation of chickpeas at Ascochyta blight hot spot area, Alem Tena, Ethiopia.

Results and DiscussionBasedonthisstepwisefieldphenotyping,11lineswhich combine moderate to high level of resistance toABandFWwereidentified(Table1)Theidentifiedresistantbreedinglineswillbeusedtointrogressresistanceintoexistinghighyieldingbutsusceptiblevarietiesusingmarker-assistedbackcrossing techniquesSpecifically,thedesilineICCV96836willbeveryuseful for introgressing AB resistance into desi chickpeavarietiesNewmappingpopulationswillbedevelopedfrom bi-parental crosses for novel resistance gene identification.

Table 1. Selected chickpea lines with resistance to FW and AB.Line Type* Resistance

to FW**Resistance to AB**

FLIP-01-40C K R RFLIP-01-47C K R RFLIP-01-52C K R RFLIP-01-57C K R RFLIP-03-125C K R RFLIP-01-24C K R RMRFLIP-01-58C K MR MRFLIP-92-148C K RMR RMRICCV-96836 D R RICCV-10515 D RMR RICC-4182 D MR R*K = Kabuli; D = Desi**R = Resistant;MR = Moderately resistant;RMR = Resistant to moderately resistant

Materials and Methods• Hundreds of chickpea breeding lines were obtained from

ICARDA and ICRISAT • ThelineswerescreenedforreactiontoFWonasickplot

atDebreZeitAgric.Res.Center(DZARC)(Figure2)• Selected resistant lines were evaluated at major chickpea

growing areas and AB hot spots of Minjar, Dhera and Alem TenaintheCentralRiftValleyofEthiopia(Figure3)

This work has been undertaken as part of the