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Foreword
The advancing of sowing date of chickpeas from spring to winter is undoubtedly
a major breakthrough in the research on food legumes in the lowland Mediterranean
region of West Asia and North Africa. This has been achieved thanks to the
research efforts that led to the development of the ascochyta blight resistant
cultivars with high yield potential.
The research on winter sowing of chickpeas was initiated well before the
establishment of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry
Areas (ICARDA) by its forerunner, the Arid Lands Agricultural Development
Program (ALAD). With the establishment of ICARDA, it became the major
crop improvement objective of its food legume program. The greatest boost to
the research efforts in this direction, however, occurred when in 1978 ICARDA
and the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRI-
SAT) decided to pool their resources to carry out research on kabuli chickpeas.
ICARDA became the principal base for this program.
After 4 years of intensive research at ICARDA, the hypothesis that wintersown
chickpeas produce substantially higher yield than spring crop was put to
wider test during the 1979-80 season through the Chickpea International Yield
Trial-Winter (CIYT-W) in nine cot.ntries of the region. On-farm trials were
carried out in different chickpea-growing areas of Syria. The hypothesis stood
the test, and the stage is now set for the next two steps: evaluation of the practice
on larger scale and in wider areas, and identification of possible contraints to the
adoption of the practice.
A workshop was, therefore, organized at the Aleppo Center of ICARDA in
Syria, froitn 4 to 7 May 1981, to focus attention on ascochyta blight and winter
sowing of cnickpeas in the West Asia and North Africa regions. The workshop,
which was the first of its kind, was attended by 39 participants from nine
different countries of the region. All aspects of the ascochyta blight and agrotechnology
and socioeconomic considerations in the winter planting of chickpeas
were thoroughly deliberated through the presentation of papers and in-depth
discussions following the presentations. Group recommendations were formulated
to provide guidelines for, and to motivate, the future work. All these are
contained in the present proceedings of the workshop.
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