Diversity of chickpea germplasm against wilt disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris, Race 2

A total of 123 'desi' chickpea germplasm were evaluated against Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris (Padwick) Matuo & K. Sato (race 2) under artificial epiphytotic conditions during 2015–16 and 2016–17. During 2015–16, 22 genotypes were found resistant, 11 moderately resistant, 17 susceptible and 73 highly susceptible. The percent incidence in susceptible check was recorded 100 percent and in resistant check it was less than 10 percent. The local severity index (LSI) was 55.2 percent at physiological maturity stage of the crop. In a total, 17.8 percent germplasm accessions revealed resistance reaction (<10% disease incidence) and 8.9 percent revealed moderately resistant reaction (10.1 to 20%). Based on previous year observations, 22 resistant and 11 moderately resistant lines were further evaluated in 2016–17. Based on pooled data of two years, 12 lines viz., EC-267154, EC-267308, EC-489845, EC-489882, EC-489919, EC-489991, EC-498818, IC-83523, IC-83538, IC-83539, IC-83748 and IC-83757 were found resistant to the disease. These identified resistant lines can be exploited for breeding programs to develop resistant varieties.