Pusa 391, a mega desi chickpea variety with medium maturity duration is extensively cultivated in the Central Zone of India. Of late, this variety has become susceptible to Fusarium wilt (FW), which has drastic impact on its yield. Presence of variability in the wilt causing pathogen, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceri (foc) across geographical locations necessitates the role of pyramiding for FW resistance for different races (foc 1,2,3,4 and 5). Subsequently, the introgression lines developed in Pusa 391 genetic background were subjected to foreground selection using three SSR markers (GA16, TA 27 and TA 96) while 48 SSR markers uniformly distributed on all chromosomes, were used for background selection to observe the recovery of recurrent parent genome (RPG). BC1F1 lines with 75–85% RPG recovery were used to generate BC2F1. The plants that showed more than 90% RPG recovery in BC2F1 were used for generating BC3F1. The plants that showed more than 96% RPG recovery were selected and selfed to generate BC3F3. Multi-location evaluation of advanced introgression lines (BC2F3) in six locations for grain yield (kg/ha), days to fifty percent flowering, days to maturity, 100 seed weight and disease incidence was done. In case of disease incidence, the genotype IL1 (BGM 20211) was highly resistant to FW in Junagarh, Indore, New Delhi, Badnapur and moderately resistant at Sehore and Nandyal. GGE biplot analysis revealed that IL1(BGM20211) was the most stable genotype at Junagadh, Sehore and Nandyal. GGE biplot analysis revealed that IL1(BGM 20211) and IL4(BGM 20212) were the top performers in yield and highly stable across six environments and were nominated for Advanced Varietal Trials (AVT) of AICRP (All India Coordinated Research Project on Chickpea) in 2018–19. BGM20211 and BGM 20212 recorded 29 and 28.5% average yield gain over the recurrent parent Pusa 391, in the AVT-1 and AVT-2 over five environments. Thus, BGM20211 was identified for release and notified as Pusa Manav/Pusa Chickpea 20211 for Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, Southern Rajasthan, Bundhelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh states by the Central Sub-Committees on Crop Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties of Agricultural Crops, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, for commercial cultivation in India (Gazette notification number S.O.500 (E) dt. 29-1-2021).Such pyramided lines give resilience to multiple races of fusarium wilt with added yield advantage.

Present investigation was carried out to study the mode of inheritance of fertility restoration for A4 cytoplasm using pollen fertility and seed set per cent as criterion in determining the fertile and sterile plants. Two CMS lines of A4 cytoplasm were crossed with two fertility restorers generating four F1 crosses, namely, ICMA 99111 x PPMI 1003, ICMA 99111 x PPMI 1087, ICMA 03999 x PPMI 1003 and ICMA 03999 x PPMI 1087, their F2s and backcross generations. All the F1s were completely fertile indicating complete fertility restoration. F2s and backcross generations were evaluated at IARI, New Delhi and IARI Regional Centre, Dharwad during summer 2017 and χ 2 test was applied to test the significance. At both the locations, all the F2 segregating populations fit well into a Mendelian ratio of 15:1 indicating digenic duplicate dominance of fertility restoring genes with χ 2 value of 0.82, 2.90, 0.04, 3.97, 4.86, 4.98, 0.02, 1.26, 3.15, 4.98, 3.15 and 0.02. The F2 hypothesis was verified with the observed frequency of segregating plants fitting well into 3:1 ration with χ 2 value of 5.45, 1.93, 4.93, 0.60, 2.83, 0.44, 4.94, 2.77, 3.33, 0.13, 4.08 and 1.51. It is further confirmation of the findings that fertility restoration is indeed governed by two duplicate genes. Association between pollen fertility and seed set per cent was significant and positive.

Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris) is a major disease that can cause up to 90% yield loss in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). The presence of 8 physiological races of Foc (0, 1A, 1B/C, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) makes it a complex task in the development of disease-resistant cultivar. Thus, Pyramiding of Foc races 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 was undertaken using WR 315 as donor and Pusa 372 as recurrent parent through Marker assisted backcross (MABC) breeding approach. A total of 20 genotypes, including 17 MABC derived lines of Pusa 372 × WR 315, susceptible parent (Pusa 372), resistant check (WR 315) and national check (JG 16) were used. Multi-location testing of advanced MABC lines at 4 different regions (Amla, Badnapur, Sehore, IARI-New Delhi) was carried out using randomised block design (RBD) in two replications during 2020–21 winter (rabi) season. Usually, multi environment testing is performed involving a single trait, which provides lower reliability in selection of lines, compared to multi-trait analysis. The present study identifies highly stable Fusarium wilt resistant lines with higher yield advantage using MTSI (Multi trait stability index) and GGE (Genotype main effect and genotype × environment interaction) biplot methodology. From GGE biplot analyses the PC1 explains 84.97% and PC2 explains 8.96% of variability. MTSI results revealed that genotype (G) 1, 4 and 3 were stable for the multiple characters studied. But, based on GGE-mean stability value G 11, 12 and 3 were identified for higher yield and better stability values. Based on MTSI and GGE, G 3 may be considered as a stable line for multiple traits including yield superiority.