Breeding for Cold Tolerance in Chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), a winter season crop, is the 4^th largest grain-legume crop in the world. In India, among various grain legumes grown chickpea ranks 1^st covering 8.25 m ha area during 2008-09. Being a cool-season crop, chickpea faces low temperature to the tune of 0-5°C for about 15-20 days in the northern states. The sensitivity of varieties at flowering to chilling temperature below 10°C has adverse effect on chickpea production (15-20% yield losses). The development of varieties possessing cold/low temperature tolerance is viable option for enhancing chickpea production and productivity in low temperature environments of countries like India, Canada and Australia. In present paper, attempts have been made to define cold/low temperature stress in relation to chickpea for different growing environments/countries. Various screening techniques and scoring index in vogue, availability of donors, genetics of cold tolerance, different aspects of varieties development including problems and prospects have been discussed.