Resistance to Phytophthora medicaginis Hansen and Maxwell in wild Cicer species and its use in breeding root rot resistant chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Phytophthora root rot caused by Phytophthora medicaginis is a major disease of chickpea in Australia. Only partial resistance, derived from chickpea, is available in Australian cultivars. Five wild Cicer species were compared with chickpea cv. Jimbour (moderately resistant) in a field experiment. The proportions of accessions with significantly lower (P < 0.05) disease scores, where lower scores equate to higher resistance, were 9/9 for C. echinospermum, 9/21 for C. bijugum, 1/4 for C. judaicum, 1/29 for C. reticulatum, and 0/3 for C. pinnatifidum. The resistance of C. echinospermum (7/7 accessions) but not the other Cicer species was reproduced in a greenhouse test. Nine out of 30 chickpea × C. echinospermum-derived lines were as resistant as the C. echinospermum parents in a separate greenhouse experiment. C. echinospermum appears to be the best of the sources we examined for breeding chickpea cultivars resistant to P. medicaginis.

Legume Crops Phylogeny and Genetic Diversity for Science and Breeding

“…Successful hybridizations between the cultivated chickpea and C. reticulatum or C. echinospermum and their reciprocals have been reported (Ladizinsky and Adler, 1976ab;Jaiswal and Singh, 1986;Singh and Ocampo, 1993;Croser et al, 2003;Ahmad and Slinkard, 2004;Singh et al, 2005;Clarke et al, 2006;Knights et al, 2008;Malikarjuna et al, 2011;Thompson et al, 2012). Although some of the accessions of C. bijugum, C. judaicum and C. pinnatifidum used as pollen donors were crossed with the cultivated chickpea, hybrids were available via embryo rescue techniques (Ahmad and Slinkard, 2004).…”

The future of grain legumes in cropping systems

“…Several breeding lines have been developed from the aschochyta-sensitive 'Genesis' cultivar (Khan et al 2009). Wild chickpea germplasm has also been used to introduce disease tolerance (Singh et al 1998;Knights et al 2008). Increasing disease resistance is a concrete possibility that would significantly decrease the risk of cultivating legumes and would enhance their attractiveness.…”

Breeding for biotic stress resistance in chickpea: progress and prospects

“…Genotypic differences in resistance to Phytophthora root rot have been identified (Brinsmead et al 1985;Dale and Irwin 1991a, b) and cultivars that are less susceptible to the disease have been developed. The levels of resistance available in cultivated species are low compared to levels in wild species (Knights et al 2003(Knights et al , 2008.…”

“…There are up to 172 pathogens that attack chickpea, of which 67 are fungal species. The most important diseases of chickpea are Ascochyta blight (AB), Botrytis grey mould (BGM), Fusarium wilt, Phytopthora root rot, dry root rot, Sclerotinia stem rot and rust (Singh et al 2003a, b;Ahmad et al 2005;Singh et al 2007;Knights et al 2008).…”