Ascochyta Blight and Winter Sowing of Chickpeas

Abstract

The advancing of the sowing date of chickpeas from spring to winter is undoubtedly a major breakthrough in the research on food legumes in the lowland Mediterranean region of West Asia and North Africa. This has been achieved thanks to the research efforts that led to the development of the ascochyta blight-resistant cultivars with high yield potential. The research on winter sowing of chickpeas was initiated well before the establishment of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (lCARDA) by its forerunner, the Arid Lands Agricultural Development Program (ALAD). With the establishment of ICARDA, it became the major crop improvement objective of its food legume program. The greatest boost to the research efforts in this direction. however, occurred when in 1978 ICARDA and the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (lCRISAT) decided to pool their resources to carry out research on kabuli chickpeas ICARDA became the principal base for this program. After 4 years of intensive research at ICARDA. the hypothesis that winter-sown chickpeas produce substantially higher yield than spring crop was put to wider test during the' 979-80 season through the Chickpea International Yield Trial-Winter (CIYT-W) in nine countries of the region. On-farm trials were carried out in different chickpea-growing areas of Syria. The hypothesis stood the test, and the stage is now set for the next two steps: evaluation of the practice on a larger scale and in wider areas, and identification of possible constraints to the adoption of the practice. A workshop was, therefore, organized at the Aleppo Center of ICARDA in Syria, from 4 to 7 May 1981, to focus attention on ascochyta blight and winter sowing of chickpeas in the West Asia and North Africa regions. The workshop, which was the first of its kind, was attended by 39 participants from nine different countries in the region. All aspects of the ascochyta blight and agrotechnology and socioeconomic considerations in the winter planting of chickpeas were thoroughly deliberated through the presentation of papers and in-depth discussions following the presentations. Group recommendations were formulated to provide guidelines for, and to motivate, the future work. All these are contained in the present proceedings of the workshop.