Poster on the title 'Screening of early maturing chickpea for resistance to Ascochyta blight and Fusarium wilt' by Ojiewo OC, Varshney RK, Gaur PM

1. 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 face
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October 2014
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)
• Most ICRISAT-derived varieties are resistant to FW
• One kabuli variety ‘Arerti’ is resistant to AB but susceptible 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 pesticide abuse, increased cost of production and health and 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 chickpea
Figure 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 Discussion
Based on this stepwise field phenotyping, 11 lines which combine moderate to high level of resistance to AB and FW were identified (Table 1)
The identified resistant breeding lines will be used to introgress resistance into existing high yielding but susceptible varieties using marker-assisted backcrossing techniques
Specifically, the desi line ICCV 96836 will be very useful for introgressing AB resistance into desi chickpea varieties
New mapping populations will be developed from 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
R
FLIP-01-47C
K
R
R
FLIP-01-52C
K
R
R
FLIP-01-57C
K
R
R
FLIP-03-125C
K
R
R
FLIP-01-24C
K
R
RMR
FLIP-01-58C
K
MR
MR
FLIP-92-148C
K
RMR
RMR
ICCV-96836
D
R
R
ICCV-10515
D
RMR
R
ICC-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
• The lines were screened for reaction to FW on a sick plot at Debre Zeit Agric. Res. Center (DZARC) (Figure 2)
• Selected resistant lines were evaluated at major chickpea growing areas and AB hot spots of Minjar, Dhera and Alem Tena in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia (Figure 3)
This work has been undertaken as part of the