Seed quality and the effect of introducing Cicer echinospermum to improve disease and pest resistance in desi chickpea

Abstract

The utilisation and consumption of food crops for human nutrition demand acceptable seed quality traits to enable efficient processing into food products. Desi chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a staple food of the Indian subcontinent, and domestication has led to cultivars with seeds that are an acceptable size, colour, and shape, easy to mill, and quick to hydrate and cook. Domestication has also severely restricted the gene pool, so breeders are looking to “wild” chickpea relatives as sources of novel genes that may provide agronomic benefits such as disease and pest resistance. Cicer echinospermum (a“wild” relative of cultivated chickpea with black, echinate seeds) was used in the breeding programme to introgress phytophthora root rot and root‐lesion nematode resistance genes into adapted C. arietinum backgrounds. The resulting C. echinospermum derivative lines were compared with commercial desi cultivars to examine any effects on seed quality attributes. The C. echinospermum derivatives had similar visual seed characteristics to the C. arietinum cultivars with, on average, lower milling performance and quicker cooking times; however, a few individual derivative lines met or exceeded the average cultivar milling performance. This paper shows the quality variation within the C. echinospermum derivatives, compares them with commercial desi cultivars, and confirms their potential to improve disease resistance whilst retaining the basic seed quality traits important for commercialisation and exporting new cultivars.