Developing Climate-Resilient Chickpea Involving Physiological and Molecular Approaches With a Focus on Temperature and Drought Stresses

Abstract

Chickpea is one of the most economically important food legumes, and a significant source of proteins. It is cultivated in more than 50 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, North America, and South America. Chickpea production is limited by various abiotic stresses (cold, heat, drought, salt, etc.). Being a winter-season crop in northern south Asia and some parts of the Australia, chickpea faces low-temperature stress (0-15°C) during the reproductive stage that causes substantial loss of flowers, and thus pods, to inhibit its yield potential by 30-40%. The winter-sown chickpea in the Mediterranean, however, faces cold stress at vegetative stage. In late-sown environments, chickpea faces high-temperature stress during reproductive and pod filling stages, causing considerable yield losses. Both the low and the high temperatures reduce pollen viability, pollen germination on the stigma, and pollen tube growth resulting in poor pod set. Chickpea also experiences drought stress at various growth stages; terminal drought, along with heat stress at flowering and seed filling can reduce yields by 40-45%. In southern Australia and northern regions of south Asia, lack of chilling tolerance in cultivars delays flowering and pod set, and the crop is usually exposed to terminal drought. The incidences of temperature extremes (cold and heat) as well as inconsistent rainfall patterns are expected to increase in near future owing to climate change thereby necessitating the development of stress-tolerant and climate-resilient chickpea cultivars having region specific traits, which perform well under drought, heat, and/or low-temperature stress. Different approaches, such as genetic variability, genomic selection, molecular markers involving quantitative trait loci (QTLs), whole genome sequencing, and transcriptomics analysis have been exploited to improve chickpea production in extreme environments. Biotechnological tools have broadened our understanding of genetic basis as well as plants' responses to abiotic stresses in chickpea, and have opened opportunities to develop stress tolerant chickpea.

AquaCrop model calibration and validation for chickpea(Cicer arietinum)in Southern Africa.

“…The crop is currently being introduced in the dry and hot environments of northeastern region of South Africa to amenize problems of climate change and food insecurity. Despite chickpea's ability to tolerate moisture stress, possible negative effects of climate change on future productivity of the crop has been documented (Kadiyala et al, 2016;Rani et al, 2020;Urgaya, 2016). Climate change in the form of increase in intensity and severity of drought, frost and heat waves may seriously alter the current planting dates in the region and consequently affect future yield of chickpea (Devasirvatham & Tan, 2018).…”

First Report of CRISPR/Cas9 Mediated DNA-Free Editing of 4CL and RVE7 Genes in Chickpea Protoplasts

“…Consequently, for the development of transgenic chickpea plantlets derived from embryonic axis co-cultivation, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and other standard protocols have been developed [ 27 , 28 ]. However, only a few reports on the use of genetic transformation/transgene(s) for the development of abiotic stress tolerance transgenic chickpea plants have been published [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Transgenic chickpeas have been developed based on the insertion of the abiotic stress-tolerant bacterial codA gene.…”

“…One of the significant constraints in terms of chickpea production is drought stress. Many previous studies have focused on this issue using genetic engineering of chickpea cultivars [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. However, recent innovations in in vitro culture and gene technology give unique opportunities to the full potential of the cultivation of chickpeas using these new technologies.…”

Genetic resources of chickpea and the efficiency of their use in breeding

“…Нещодавно розроблено міжнародну науково-дослідну програму, спрямовану на інтенсивне використання генетичної мінливості диких видів. У відповідності з нею вже створено інтрогресивні лінії нуту F 4 -F 6 з участю C. reticulatum, C. echinospermum [38,39,40]. На території Туреччини, Ірану, Афганістану, Індійського субконтиненту існує значна кількість місцевих рас, які несуть ряд цінних господарських ознак, необхідних у селекційній роботі [41].…”

“…Крім того, виділили джерела окремих цінних господарських ознак, які є цінними для синтетичної селекції. Підвищену кількість бобів на рослині відмічено у генотипів Donia (45,6), Дніпровський 1 (39,2), Розанна (38,4), Краснокутский 195 (45,6), б/н Мексика (40,1), Привозний (40,6), NEC-2616 (37,1), NEC-2630 (39,7), NEC-2622 (39,1), NEC-2152 (40,1). За кількістю насінин у бобі кращими були Александрит (1,5), Flip 85-13c (1,5) і LR (1,5).…”