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Proceedings of the Workshop an Ascochyta Blight and Winter Sowing of Chickpeas (Saxena, MC.
and Singh. K.B.; eds.), ICARDA. 4-7 May' 1981. Aleppo. Syria
Ascochyta Blight of Chickpeas in Spain
J. CUBERO
Departmento de Genetica, Escuela Technica Superior de
Ingenieros Agronomos, Cordoba, Spain.
Chickpea Area, Distribution and Major Limiting Factors
In 1978, chickpea was cultivated in Spain in the regions shown in Figure 1.It is
interesting to compare this distribution with that in 1922 (Fig 2). The trends in
area, production and yield since 1920 are indicated in Figure 3, which shows that
the chickpea area is steadily decreasing in Spain. A similar pattern is offered by
other pulses (Lathyrus sp., Vicia sp., field peas etc.) and some causes have been
suggested to explain this fact:
I. This pattrn is shown by the grain legumes used for animal feed. The
massive soybean importations since the late fifties have provoked a lack of
interest in such crops; all the animal feed industries are based on soybeans
and not on traditional pulses.
2. During the same time, the economic situation has resulted in a big migration
from rural areas to the cities. Chickpeas, like most of the pulses, were
preferentially cultivated in rural poor areas, and they were among the first to
be abandoned.
3. Yields have been traditionally very low ,Fig. 3), so farmers do not get any
substantial revenues from chickpeas. There are no selected cultivars and
hence no recommended list for chickpeas in Spain.
4. Improvemnent in farming techniques has been generated by the work of good
farmers themselves. Extensionists have forgotten chickpeas as with many
other pulses and have concentrated on the big crops of the moment ­
soybean in the period 1960-70, sunflower since 1970, and sugar-beet according
to the political conveniences, etc. Pulses have probably been the crops
suffering most from a lack of adequate policy.
5. Once chickpea for human consumption reached high price (mainly the extra
large types), there was one more constraint to increasing the cultivated area,
i.e. importations from Mexico. Table I gives an idea of the importance of
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