Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most ımportant food legume crops in the world. Chickpea is valued for its nutritive seed composition, which is high in protein content and used increasingly as a substitute for animal protein. Days to fırst flowerıng is an important component of the adaptation and productivity of chickpea in rainfed environments characterized by terminal drought and heat stress. This study aimed to identify the inheritance pattern and identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for days to first flowering and flowering color in F2:4 generation nested association mapping (NAM) populations of chickpea obtained using wide crosses between Gokce as the cultivated variety and wild accessions of C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum. A total of ten populations of 113 to 191 individuals each were grown under field conditions near Sanliurfa, Turkey. Two populations were genotyped for 46 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, enabling QTL analysis. Flowering time differed between families, with the frequency distributions indicating quantitative inheritance controlled by both genes of major and minor effects. Three significant QTLs for the flowering time were mapped in one mapping family. For flower color, chi-square tests showed that five populations accepted single-gene action, two populations accepted two-gene action, and three populations accepted neither model. Two significant QTLs at three genomic regions were identified across the two genotyped populations. Days to first flowering was positively correlated with flower color for two of the ten populations. The diversity of QTLs identified underscored the potential of crop wild relatives of chickpea as sources of novel alleles for chickpea breeding.

Objective of investigation: Chickpea is a major global food legume for which seed weight and plant growth habit are important yield and harvestability components for plant breeding. This study tested seed weight and plant growth habit inheritance and identified quantitative trait loci (QTL).Experimental material: A 10 nested association mapping (NAM) populations of chickpea were created from crosses between 'Gokce', a cultivar and wild crop relative accessions of Cicer reticulatum and Cicer echinospermum. Families were then developed to the F2:4 generation.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a globally important food legume but its yield is negatively impacted by the fungal pathogen Ascochyta blight (Ascochyta rabiei) causing necrotic lesions leading to plant death. Past studies have found that Ascochyta resistance is polygenic. It is important to find new resistance genes from the wider genepool of chickpeas. This study reports the inheritance of Ascochyta blight resistance of two wide crosses between the cultivar Gokce and wild chickpea accessions of C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum under field conditions in Southern Turkey. Following inoculation, infection damage was scored weekly for six weeks. The families were genotyped for 60 SNPs mapped to the reference genome for quantitative locus (QTL) mapping of resistance. Family lines showed broad resistance score distributions. A late responding QTL on chromosome 7 was identified in the C. reticulatum family and three early responding QTLs on chromosomes 2, 3, and 6 in the C. echinospermum family. Wild alleles mostly showed reduced disease severity, while heterozygous genotypes were most diseased. Interrogation of 200k bp genomic regions of the reference CDC Frontier genome surrounding QTLs identified nine gene candidates involved in disease resistance and cell wall remodeling. This study identifies new candidate chickpea Ascochyta blight resistance QTLs of breeding potential.