Mining allelic variation associated with beneficial traits in composite collection of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)H DUpadhyayaauthorMBaumauthorS LDwivediauthor.et alauthorChickpea is the 4th largest grain-legume crop in the world covering an area
of 10.38 million ha, with a production of 8.57 million t, and productivity of
0.83 t ha-1. There are two types of chickpeas – desi, widely grown in South
Asia and Africa, and kabuli, widely grown in the Mediterranean region.
Countries with the largest chickpea production are India, Turkey, Pakistan,
and Iran in Asia, Ethiopia in Africa, and Mexico in North and Central America.
Major constraints to chickpea productivity are Ascochyta rabei, Botrytis
cinerea, Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium solani, Rhizoctonia bataticola,
Helicoverpa armigera, Liriomyza cicerina, drought and salinity, and
fluctuation in temperature. There is a large variation in most of the
morphological/agronomic traits and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses
of chickpea germplasm.............ChickpeaGenetics and Genomics2005International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid TropicsMonograph