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lines will then be made available to cooperators in Pakistan, Iran and Ethiopia
through the ICRISAT International Chickpea Cooperative Trial.
Another approach will be to screen the F2 populations for resistance at Tel
Hadya, and furnish F3 resistant bulks to cooperators the following season for
selection under local conditions.
Seed Production Strategy
Most of the countries in North Africa and West Asia, where there is a possibility
of introducing winter chickpeas, do not have a seed industry for legumes. There is
thus a need for national programs to start such an industry for the large-scale
multiplication of seed, seed certification, and monitoring of purity, correct labelling,
etc. There is also v need to develop criteria for the identification of resistant
cultivars either through the use of inarker genes, or such methods as protein or
enzyme banding techniques. Unlpqf these rncasures are undertaken there is a
danger of a xvror'g cultivar bei:g grown in winter and its possible devastation by
ascochyta blight.
Blight infection in the field often starts from infected seed, and it is therefore
essential to ensure supplies of discase-free seed. This can be ensured by mul ip y..
ing seed during spring when the disease rarely occurs, by roguing the infected
plants before harvest, and by treating the seed with Benlate and Calixin M
mixture (Reddy 1980). The disadvantage of this scheme is reduced production of
seed per unit area, but the overriding factor must be the production of diseasefree
seed.
Conclusions
Over the past few years the chickpea program at ICARDA has made good
progress towards the development of screening techniques, the identification of
sources of resistance to ascochyta blight and the incorporation of resistance into
superior agronomic backgrounds. Some information on the inheritance of resistance
has also been obtained.
Several of the germplasm lines with resistance are also high yielding and have
good seed quality. These lines could be released and made available to farmers in
the near future. Ascochyta blight resistance would not only result in improved
yield stability for the normal spring-sown crop but would also enable substantial
yield increases te be achieved if the crop were to be planted in the winter.
The future breeding program at ICARDA will continue to place a strong
emphasis on ascochyta resistance and eventually most of the materials developed
at the Center will have resistance incorporated.