Diversity for abiotic and biotic stress resistance in the wild annual Cicer species

Abstract

Data on 228 accessions of eight annual wild Cicer species and 20 cultivated chickpea check lines were evaluated for diversity in response to six of the most serious biotic and abiotic stresses which reduce crop yield and production stability of chickpea, i.e., ascochyta blight, fusarium wilt, leaf miner, bruchid, cyst nematode, and cold. Relative frequencies of score reactions to the above six stresses were recorded from all the annual wild Cicer species and the cultivated taxon. Patterns of distribution and amount of variation of the resistance reactions differed between stresses and species. C. bijugum, C. pinnatifidum and C. echinospermum showed accessions with at least one source of resistance (1 to 4 score reactions) to each stress. Overall, C. bijugum showed the highest frequencies of the highest categories of resistance. Next in performance was C. pinnatifidum followed by C. judaicum, C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum. Furthermore, C. bijugum had the highest number of accessions with multiple resistance to the six stresses; two accessions were resistant to five stresses and 16 to four. According to the Shannon-Weaver diversity indices ((H) over bar'), five species showed discrete mean diversity indices which varied from 0.649 in C. pinnatifidum to 0.526 in C. judaicum, whereas C. chorassanicum, C. cuneatum and C. yamashitae showed the lowest H's, which were respectively 0.119, 0.174 and 0.216. Pair-wise correlations among the six biotic and abiotic stresses showed the possibility of combining these resistances. Interestingly, multiple resistant accessions were predominantly of Turkish origin.