%C Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India %A H D Upadhyaya %A M Baum %A S L Dwivedi %A . et al %I International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics %D 2005 %L icrisat5809 %X Chickpea 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............. %T Mining allelic variation associated with beneficial traits in composite collection of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)