G6007.04/G6010.04: Improve chickpea productivity for marginal environments in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia- Phase II

Abstract

Chickpea is the world’s second largest grown food legume and the developing countries account for over 95% of its production and consumption. Drought is globally the number one constraint to chickpea production, causing yield losses of around 3.7 million tons (out of a total production of 8.6 million tons). TL I Phase II aims at harnessing the resources developed during Phase I for chickpea crop improvement. Eight superior lines were selected based on phenotyping of reference collection and 37 and 44 crosses were made in sub-Saharan Africa and India respectively for developing pre-breeding populations. Further 28 two-way crosses, 14 four-way crosses and seven eight-way crosses were made and F1s have been shown for developing MAGIC populations (Activity 1). For designing the KASPar assay, 2486 genes containing high confidence SNPs were chosen and by using Marker Services of Integrated Breeding Platform, successful KASPar assays were developed for a total of 2005 genes. Towards development of genome-wide physical map, in collaboration with National Institute of Plant Genetic Research (NIPGR), New Delhi (S Bhatia and A K Tyagi) and UC-Davis, USA (MingCheng Luo), two new BAC libraries were constructed using HindIII and EcoRI restriction enzymes. To date, 15,744 clones were fingerprinted and 10,368 fingerprints were edited. Fingerprinting of remaining clones is in progress to develop genome wide physical map (Activity 2). For enhancing MABC activities, involving NARS partners as leaders under TL I Phase II, Ms Serah Songok, a PhD student from Egerton University in Kenya, is involved in introgression of QTL for root traits from ICC 4958 into ICCV 97105 and ICCV 95423. In this context, 3 cycles of MABC have been completed and 100 BC3F1 seeds were generated in each cross. DZARC in Debre Zeit has completed first backcrossing of Ejere × ICC 4958 and Arerti × ICC 4958 with the recurrent parents (Ejere and Arerti). In case of MARS, that was initiated in the Phase I of TL-I, F3:5 progenies from two crosses (JG 11 × ICCV 04112 and JG 130 × ICCV 05107) developed were evaluated at three locations (Debre Zeit in Ethiopia, Koibatek in Kenya and Patancheru in India) under rainfed and irrigated. QTL analysis is in progress for both the populations. A proposal was developed and submitted to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India for funding a TL-I complementary project on application of MABC and MARS research to enhance drought tolerance in chickpea in India. The project has been approved with a total budget of about US $ 850,000 over a period of 3 years (Activity 3). A workshop on modern breeding technologies for chickpea improvement was conducted in the Year 1 (October 25 – November 19, 2010) at the ardent request of breeders and collaborators. (http://www.icrisat.org/bt-publicdomain-mas2.htm). One PhD student, Ms Serah Songok, currently working at ICRISAT, has been registered at Egerton University. A second PhD student, Mr Musa Jarso, has registered at Addis Ababa University will commence work shortly on molecular breeding. Another PhD student, Ms Alice Koskie, registered at WACCI would work on MARS activities. Mr Kebede Teshome, PhD student, registered at Haramaya University is currently working at ICRISAT. An MSc student, Mr Abebe Sori, is registered at Haramaya University and Mr Moses Oyier, has been registered at Egerton, and has commenced work at both the university and at ICRISAT. Mr Getachew Tilahun, registered at Addis Ababa University will start to work on MABC for drought tolerance. Efforts to identify and enroll the balance of the targeted number of MSc students are ongoing (Activity 4). Compilation of the marker sequence data, marker genotyping data, mapping data and phenotypic data obtained in Tropical Legumes I Project Phase I is in progress. Data will be curated in appropriate databases by the end of April 2011. Till now 11 datasets were curated and data have become available in local database (Activity 5)