Technological Breakthrough to Produce Disease- Resistant Chickpea

ICRISAT scientists have recently succeeded in obtaining healthy hybrids of chickpea—the world's third most important food legume—by crossing a cultivated variety, Cicer arietinum, with the wild species Cicer bijugum. The technique involving embryo rescue and tissue culture methods has the potential for improving disease resistance thereby boosting chickpea yields. The breakthrough is in developing chickpea hybrids by crossing cultivated varieties with wild species, an achievement that had so far proved elusive.

“This breakthrough can result in the cultivation of improved chickpea,” said William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT. “Thanks to this effort, poor and marginal farmers of the semiarid tropics stand to benefit.”

Chickpea rests on a narrow genetic base because of its single domestication and its self-pollinating nature. One of the best and proven means to broaden the genetic base of the crop, and also to introduce newer sources of resistance to various biotic and abiotic constraints, is to create interspecific hybrids of the plant, and by utilizing the wild species of chickpea for the purpose.

Chickpea, however, is not easily given to hybridization. Except for two closely related wild species, namely C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum, none of the remaining 41 wild species are crossable with cultivated chickpea due to hybridization barriers.

With the development of embryo rescue and tissue culture techniques for chickpea, it was possible to cross C. arietinum with C. bijugum and obtain healthy hybrids. Green hybrid plants were produced between cultivated chickpea and the wild species C. bijugum, for the first time at ICRISAT, marking a breakthrough in this research.

C. bijugum used in the crossing program has many desirable characters such as resistance to Ascochyta blight, botrytis grey mold and Helicoverpa—the menacing pod borer. Crossing the cultivated and wild chickpea varieties is expected to produce a hardy plant that will better withstand harsh weather and pest attacks that are the bane of poor farmers in the semi-arid tropics.