New Sources of Resistance and Heritability to Wilt/Root Rot Complex Diseases in Kabuli Chickpea

Abstract

Chickpea wilt/root rot complexes are the most important yield-limiting factors in spring planted chickpea in the Mediterranean region, south Asia, and East Africa highlands. In West Asia and North Africa, Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceri (Foc) is a dominant pathogen in the disease complex. ICARDA Kabuli chickpea breeding program evaluates breeding lines in sick plots dominated with Foc pathogen for global elite lines supplies. In the 2021–2022 growing season, 240 genotypes were evaluated in sick plots at Terbol ICARDA research station in Lebanon and naturally infested experimental field at Merchouch ICARDA research station in Morocco. The experiment was laid out in an alpha lattice design with two replications. Percent plant mortality was scored on plot bases once the average mortality of the susceptible line (ILC482) reached over 95%. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis has indicated that the genetic variation among genotypes was caused by genetic variation as broad sense heritability was high (h2 = 0.76). However, only 51.3% of the changes were attributable to the genotypes, and only 11% to the environment (locations). Only four genotypes (S180005, S180022, S180071, and S180079) showed good levels of resistance (<20%) at both locations. These genotypes will be utilized for pyramiding additional resistance genes into other FW races and producing high-yield breeding varieties through the chickpea breeding program at ICARDA and will be shared with the national chickpea breeding programs in CWANA countries.