Development of Disease-Resistant Chickpea

Abstract

The development of high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is one of the urgent needs of agriculture in Pakistan. Major problems include nonavailability of good sources of resistance to prevalent diseases, and combination of resistance to prevalent or major diseases with desirable characters, including high yield and desirable agronomic and acceptable technological characters. Despite inherent problems, some progress has been made in developing varieties of chickpea which combine reasonably high yield with moderate resistance to blight and wilt. Varieties of chickpea with moderate to high resistance to blight and suitable for cultivation in blight-affected areas are available. However, selections with high resistance to blight proved susceptible to wilt. Only a few combine resistance to both blight and wilt, and these are only moderately resistant. Resistance to blight appears to be associated with the intensity and distribution of glandular hair on various malic acid-secreting plant parts. In general, varieties resistant to blight produce higher quantities of acids, including malic acid, particularly in early stages of growth and in the rainless period. A better understanding of the nature of resistance in chickpea to the prevalent diseases should be helpful in a program of developing varieties of chickpea resistant to diseases.