Genetic Basis of Domestication Traits in Chickpeas

Chickpeas (Cicer arietinum) are a key source of protein and fiber in the human diet. Chickpeas are also an essential part of many cropping systems as they provide a disease break for cereal and oilseed crops and interact with soil bacteria to fix nitrogen, improving soil fertility. The yield of chickpea crops is affected by disease and abiotic stresses. The development of more resilient chickpea varieties, however, is hampered by the narrow gene pool of domesticated chickpea. Close wild relatives offer a solution with a huge amount of genetic diversity and traits that have the potential to improve chickpea varieties.

A research team at the Centre for Crop and Disease Management, Curtin University in Bentley, Australia generated populations by crossing domesticated chickpea varieties with diverse wild chickpea accessions. They used these populations to map regions of the genome associated with important agronomic traits, including flowering time and growth habit, and identified genes predicted to control these traits within the genomic regions.

These findings can be exploited to reduce the time and cost required to generate improved chickpea varieties that retain key agronomic and beneficial traits derived from chickpea wild relatives, such as disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance.