Journal of Food Legumes

Ascochyta blight (AB) caused by Ascochyta rabiei occurs in most of the chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) growing areas of the world. Out of the 930 diverse chickpea germplasm entries evaluated under different years of testing from 1982 to 2010 in the Ascochyta Blight Nursery at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, identified 131 entries promising with consistent disease resistance to AB. Of the 20 entries originated from India, one entry, ‘ICC 1467’ was highly resistant and 9 showed resistant reaction to AB. Of the 76 entries from Iran, eight entries ‘ICC 2342’, ‘ICC 3599’, ‘ICC 3601’, ‘ICC 4066’, ‘ICC 4074’, ‘ICC 4075’, ‘ICC 4092’ and ‘ICC 4200’ showed highly resistant reaction. Of the five entries from USSR, one entry ‘ICC 5033’ was highly resistant while two entries ‘ICC 1069’ and ‘ICC6304’ were resistant. Of the selection material from breeding trials, 9 entries were resistant and 8 entries were moderately resistant. ‘ICC 76’ showed stable resistance for 8 years, ‘ICC 1069’ and ‘ICC 6304’ for ten years and these have been extensively employed in chickpea resistance breeding for AB. Nine selection lines viz., ‘EC 5167007’, ‘EC 517011’, ‘EC 517023’, ‘EC 517025’, ‘EC 517039’, ‘EC 516796’, ‘EC 516850’, ‘EC 516934’ and ‘EC 516936’ exhibited consistent AB resistance for 3–4 years. ‘ICCV 98818’ also showed resistance for four years. The lines identified resistant to AB for a number of years can serve as durable sources of resistance for their use in the breeding programme.