Wild Lathyrus species as a great source of resistance for introgression into cultivated grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) against broomrape weeds (Orobanche crenata Forsk. and Orobanche foetida Poir.)

Abstract

Broomrape weeds (Orobanche spp.) are root holoparasitic plants that cause serious damage to a range of legume crops in the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan African regions. Grain yield of cultivated species of grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is almost negligible at the highest infection severity of Orobanche. Crop wild relatives (CWRs) have emerged as a novel source for many traits in diverse crops. Lathyrus is one of the largest genera with more than 160 species. In the present study, we screened 285 accessions representing 13 Lathyrus species for their reactions against two common broomrape species, Orobanche crenata Forsk. and O. foetida Poir, under field conditions. Screening at hot spots in Morocco and Tunisia resulted in the identification of resistant accessions of wild Lathyrus species against the parasitic weed. The level of resistance to O. foetida was higher among wild species compared with O. crenata. Field results showed complete resistance for O. crenata and O. foetida by L. articulatus L. and moderate resistance by L. aphaca L. and L. ochrus (L.) DC. Resistance to O. crenata in L. sativus accessions was validated in a pot experiment under controlled conditions. Two accessions-namely, IG64782 and IG65197-showed complete resistance to O. crenata. A moderately resistant accession, IG116989, that revealed low infestation in the field showed high susceptibility in pot experiment. The results indicated that the resistance against O. crenata and O. foetida was associated with slow development of the established tubercles and low induction of parasite germination. Abbreviations: β-ODAP, β-N-oxalyl-l-α,β diamino propionic acid; CWR, crop wild relative; EODW, dry weight of emerged Orobanche per plant; EON, emerged Orobanche spikes per plant; ICARDA, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas; PI, parasitism index; MR, moderately resistant. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Resistance to Orobanche crenata Forsk. in lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.): exploring some potential altered physiological and biochemical defense mechanisms

“…Parasitism Index was positively correlated with EON and EODW, which reflects the severe negative effect of O. crenata parasitism on lentil growth and seed production. Similar results were reported in previous studies performed on faba bean (Abbes et al 2011;Trabelsi et al 2015;Trabelsi et al 2016), lentil (Ennami et al 2017), chickpea (Nefzi et al 2016) and grass pea (Abdallah et al 2020).…”

“…Such resistance was expressed by the lowest shoot and root dry weight reduction and a low number of total O. crenata shoots and tubercules. similar results were reported in previous studies performed on faba bean and lentil (Ennami et al 2017;Abdallah et al 2020) who reported a large variation in infestation intensity under pots conditions and field trials.…”

“…The holoparasitic weed O.crenata is known for its devastating effect on productivity of many crop species, especially legume crops such as faba bean, chickpea, grass pea and lentil (Amri et al 2012;Millán et al 2015;Nefzi et al 2016;Abdallah et al 2020). In our study, we evaluated the performance of a lentil germplasm collection under O. crenata open field infested conditions.…”

Application of crop wild relatives in modern breeding: An overview of resources, experimental and computational methodologies

“…Recourses available in genebanks have been used in a number of studies, for example Abdallah et al (2020) obtained 285 accessions, representing 13 Lathyrus (grass pea) species, from The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and showed that wild Lathyrus species have higher resistance to broomrape weeds (Orobanche spp. ), a root holoparasitic plant that causes significant damage to legume crops (Abdallah et al, 2021). Dida et al (2021) obtained 52 finger millet accessions, including landraces, wild lines and hybrids between wild and cultivated genotypes, from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Genetic Resources Research Institute (GeRRI) genebanks and found that wild accessions were more resistant to blast disease, caused by the Magnaporthe grisea fungus, in comparison to the cultivated accessions (Dida et al, 2021).…”

Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: A Synopsis of Coordinated National Crop Wild Relative Seed Collecting Programs across Five Continents

“…Although CWR have been relatively neglected for decades [ 15 ], their potential was highlighted by Vavilov, and their use in breeding has been increasing since the 1980s [ 16 ]. The use of CWR is widespread and well-established for crops such as barley [ 17 ], potato [ 18 ], wheat [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ] and rice [ 23 , 24 , 25 ] and developing for others such as alfalfa [ 26 ], carrot [ 27 ], chickpea [ 28 ], eggplant [ 29 , 30 ], finger millet [ 31 ], grass pea [ 32 ] and sorghum [ 33 , 34 ]. The starting point for use is viable hybridization between the crop and a wild relative.…”