Mining the chickpea composite collection for allelic variation

Chickpea, Cicer arietinum L., is believed to have originated in south-east Turkey. However, at present, the major chickpea-growing countries are India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Australia, Ethiopia, and Mexico. Chickpea is a leguminous food crop, self-pollinating, and diploid. Its gene pool consists of 43 species: one annual cultivated (i.e. chickpea), eight annual wild, and 34 perennial wild species. Two types of chickpea are known: desi types with coloured flowers, and angular-shaped and dark-coloured seeds, primarily grown in South Asia and Africa; and kabuli types with white flowers, owl’s head-shaped and beige-coloured seeds, and grown mostly in Mediterranean countries. To study the allelic richness and diversity associated with beneficial traits, a composite set of 3000 chickpea germplasm accessions was constituted. This set included the chickpea core collection, old and new cultivars and traitspecific germplasm accessions from ICRISAT and accessions representing the ICARDA collection