Marker-assisted backcrossing to introgress resistance to Fusarium wilt (FW) race 1 and Ascochyta blight (AB) in C 214, an elite cultivar of chickpea

Fusarium wilt (FW), caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris and Ascochyta blight (AB), caused by Ascochyta rabiei are two major constraints to chickpea production. Therefore, two parallel marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) programmes by targeting foc 1 locus and two QTL regions, ABQTL-I and ABQTL-II were undertaken to introgress resistance to FW and AB, respectively in C 214, an elite cultivar of chickpea. In the case of FW, foreground selection was conducted with 6 markers (TR19, TA194, TAA60, GA16, TA110 and TS82) linked to foc 1 in the cross C 214 × WR 315 (FW-resistant). On the other hand, 8 markers (TA194, TR58, TS82, GA16, SCY17, TA130, TA2 and GAA47) linked with ABQTL-I and ABQTL-II were used in the case of AB by deploying C 214 × ILC 3279 (AB-resistant) cross. Background selection in both crosses was employed with evenly distributed 40 (C 214 × WR 315) to 43 (C 214 × ILC 3279) SSR markers in the chickpea genome to select plant(s) with higher recurrent parent genome (RPG) recovery. By using three backcrosses and three rounds of selfing, 22 BC3F4 lines were generated for C 214 × WR 315 cross and 14 MABC lines for C 214 × ILC 3279 cross. Phenotyping of these lines has identified 3 resistant lines (with 92.7-95.2% RPG) to race 1 of FW and 7 resistant lines (with 81.7-85.40% RPG) to AB that may be tested for yield and other agronomic traits under multi-location trials for possible release and cultivation.