Chickpea is a cool season food legume largely grown on residual soil moisture, the crop often experiences moisture stress towards end of the crop season (terminal drought). The crop may also face heat stress at the reproductive stage if sowing is delayed.

1. Accelerated chickpea
breeding for water-limited
environments
Srinivasan Samineni
Chickpea breeding
Patancheru-ICRISAT

2. Chickpea in water-limited environments
• Chickpea is a cool season food legume largely grown on
residual soil moisture.
• The crop often experiences moisture stress towards end of
the crop season (terminal drought).
• The crop may also face heat stress at the reproductive
stage if sowing is delayed.
• The increasing climate variability.
• The genetic approaches being used: development early
maturing varieties with enhanced tolerance to these
stresses.

3. • Early maturing varieties
• Tolerance to terminal drought and heat stresses
• Resistant varieties for collar rot, dry root rot and ascochyta blight
diseases
• Improving protein content and micronutrients
• Herbicide tolerance
• Suitability to machine harvesting
• Improving market preferred seed traits (color, size and shape)
1. Major research focus
2. Modernization of chickpea breeding

4. Breeding for early maturity
Early flowering Early flowering
F1
• Few genes controlling flowering time
• efl-1 (ICCV 2)
• efl-2 or ppd (ICC 5810)
• efl-3 (BGD 132)
• efl-4 (ICC 16641/ICC 16644)*
*Newly identified
Gaur PM, Samineni S, et al (2015). Euphytica 203: 295-308
Mallikarjuna BP, Samineni S, et al (2017). Frontiers in Plant
Science
• Major genomic regions controlling early
flowering
• efl-1 (Qefl1-2) on CaLG04
• efl-2 (Qefl2-1) on CaLG01
• efl-3 (Qefl3-3) on CaLG08
• efl-4 (Qefl4-1) on CaLG06
• Early-phenology is an important mechanism for
terminal drought stress and adaptation to new
niches

5. Breeding for drought tolerance
Selection based on grain yield under rainfed (moisture stress) condition

6. • A genomic region (QTL-hotspot) for
root traits and several drought
tolerance related traits, contributing
up to 58.2% phenotypic variation
identified (Varshney et al 2014)
• This genomic region was
introgressed into several cultivars
from South Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa using marker-assisted
backcrossing
Mapping QTLs for drought tolerance and MABC
ICC 4958 × ICC1882 RILs
ICC 283 × ICC 8261 RILs

7. Performance of introgression lines in JG 11
S N Entry ICRISAT Nandyal Dharwad Gulbarga
1 ICCIL 01001 4 -9 8 21
2 ICCIL 01003 -9 9 8 39
3 ICCIL 01009 -1 -1 6 -1
4 ICCIL 01010 -6 1 1 21
5 ICCIL 01011 13 -1 16 3
6 ICCIL 01012 0 -2 5 -11
7 ICCIL 01013 18 23 12 21
8 ICCIL 01015 14 -3 8 -4
9 ICCIL 01019 -4 -3 12 -23
10 ICCIL 01021 22 4 10 17
11 ICCIL 01023 1 -1 4 38
12 ICCIL 01026 -14 -6 9 19
13 ICCIL 01030 6 13 -5 7
14 ICCIL 01031 -1 4 15 3
15 ICCIL 01032 4 2 9 11
16 ICCIL 01033 -1 5 10 6
17 ICCIL 01034 8 19 2 13
18 ICCIL 01035 10 7 17 -23
19 ICCIL 01037 -13 25 -4 -35
20 ICCIL 01038 -5 20 1 -1
21 ICCIL 01040 -3 8 18 18
22 ICCIL 01041 -12 -1 15 27
Irrigated S N Entry ICRISAT Nandyal Dharwad Gulbarga
1 ICCIL 01001 27 2 13 33
2 ICCIL 01003 18 10 2 37
3 ICCIL 01009 15 4 9 0
4 ICCIL 01010 18 -14 -11 -22
5 ICCIL 01011 2 1 9 6
6 ICCIL 01012 6 9 11 -2
7 ICCIL 01013 14 33 -22 20
8 ICCIL 01015 24 2 13 -2
9 ICCIL 01019 -8 0 -10 -1
10 ICCIL 01021 3 4 -12 17
11 ICCIL 01023 1 21 -4 20
12 ICCIL 01026 -6 -5 -4 -6
13 ICCIL 01030 23 7 1 -13
14 ICCIL 01031 0 8 12 -4
15 ICCIL 01032 27 3 11 26
16 ICCIL 01033 5 10 12 1
17 ICCIL 01034 -1 -10 -1 2
18 ICCIL 01035 -2 39 -8 17
19 ICCIL 01037 16 -4 -3 5
20 ICCIL 01038 -4 -4 -17 13
21 ICCIL 01040 6 30 6 13
22 ICCIL 01041 5 -13 13 1
Rainfed
Note: Values represent % increase/decrease in seed yield over the recurrent parent (JG 11); Values in bold are significant compared to JG 11

8. • Seven ILs were entered by partners in Initial Varietal
Trial (IVT) of All India Coordinated Research Project
(AICRP) on Chickpea during 2015-16. Three were
promoted to AVT.
• Ten ILs are being tested in a special Advanced
Varietal Trial 1 (AVT 1) of AICRP on Chickpea during
2016-17 and advanced to AVT 2.
Performance of ILs at national level testing

9. Improving heat tolerance
• Reproductive phase is sensitive to heat stress, particularly the flowering stage.
• Two RIL populations have been developed from two crosses (ICC 4567 x ICC 15614, ICC
4567 x ICC 1356) in chickpea.
• Four major QTLs (PV 50%) for number of filled pods, number of seeds, grain yield and
% pod setting, located in CaLG05 & CaLG06 genomic region identified
CaLG05CaLG06
Paul P, Samineni S, et al
(2017) communicated

10. Development of drought & heat tolerant lines from
MAGIC population
28 two-way crosses
14 four-way
crosses
7 eight-way crosses
7 F17 F1
F2F2
F3 (1200)F3 (1200)
F8 (1136)F8 (1136)
Single seed descent method
Phenotypic evaluation
A = ICC 4958
B = ICCV 10
C = JAKI 9218
D = JG 11
E = JG 130
F = JG 16
G = ICCV 97105
H = ICCV 00108
• Developed 1200 MAGIC lines using
8 cultivars/promising germplasm
• Large variation among MAGIC lines
for
• flowering time (34-69 d),
• plant height (23.3-65 cm),
• seed yield (179-4554 kg/ha),
• harvest index (0.10-0.88)
• seed size (10-45)
• Four MAGIC lines are being tested
in (IVT) of AICRP on Chickpea

11. Varieties suitable for machine harvesting
• In 2016, first machine
harvestable variety NBeG 47
released in Andhra Pradesh,
India
• In 2017, Phule Vikram and
RVG 204

12. Now, able to take 3 generations per year
(Oct-Feb, Feb-May, and May-Sep)
Recent experiments showed that 5
generations per year are possible
Modernization of chickpea breeding
1 2
Rapid generation advancement
40 d
8-10 hr20-24 hr
25-30 d 45-50 d22-25 d
Earliest seed stage
ready for germination
after flower initiation

13. Planting and harvesting by
machines
Digital data recording-Tablets,
barcode labels
Post-harvest observations: Digital
seed counters, incubators, seed
dryers, seed blowers etc.
1 All nurseries (55/55) and trials (101/101)
conducted during 2016-17 in Breeding
Management System (BMS)
Modernization of chickpea breeding
Mechanization
2
3
1
Data Management
4 Seed inventory: in progress
Conti…

14. Thank You
Chickpea mutants