Technological breakthrough to produce disease-resistant chickpea

Scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) have succeeded in obtaining healthy hybrids of chickpea by crossing a cultivated variety "� Cicer arietinum "� with the wild species Cicer bijugum.

The development of this hybrid, achieved through embryo rescue and tissue culture methods, has the potential for improving disease resistance thereby boosting crop yields.

The breakthrough is in developing chickpea hybrids by crossing cultivated varieties with wild species, an achievement that has so far proved highly illusive.

According to William Dar, Icrisat director-general, the breakthrough can result in the cultivation of improved chickpea, which is a crop that benefits the poor and marginal farmers of the semi-arid tropics.

Crossing the cultivated and wild chickpea is expected to produce a hardy plant that will be able to stand up better to harsh weather and pest attacks.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum), world's third most important food legume, rests on a narrow genetic base because of its single domestication and its self-pollinating nature.

One of the best and proven means to broaden the genetic base of the crop, and also to introduce newer sources of resistance to various biotic and abiotic constraints, is to create inter-specific hybrids of the plant, and more, by utilising the wild species of chickpea for the purpose.Chickpea, however, is not easily given to hybridisation, an Icrisat press release said.