Genetic dissection of domestication traits in interspecific chickpea populations.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a pulse crop that provides an integral source of nutrition for human consumption. The close wild relatives Cicer reticulatum and Cicer echinospermum harbor untapped genetic diversity that can be exploited by chickpea breeders to improve domestic varieties. Knowledge of genomic loci that control important chickpea domestication traits will expedite the development of improved chickpea varieties derived from interspecific crosses.

Identification of Novel Sources of Resistance to Ascochyta Blight in a Collection of Wild Accessions.

Chickpea production is constrained worldwide by the necrotrophic fungal pathogen , the causal agent of Ascochyta blight (AB). To reduce the impact of this disease, novel sources of resistance are required in chickpea cultivars. Here, we screened a new collection of wild accessions for AB resistance and identified accessions resistant to multiple, highly pathogenic isolates.