Response of Chickpea Lines to Ascochyta rabiei at Two Growing Stages

During winter 2004 and 2005, two field and glasshouse experiments were conducted to evaluate the response of 471 chickpea genotypes to Ascochyta rabiei, as Ascochyta blight (AB) disease in Chickpea (Cicer aurietimum). Frequent rainfall at flowering and pod formation stages made favorite conditions conducive for the infection and symptoms expression. So, the genotypes with high level of tolerance at seedling stage proved response to the pathogen under field condition. Disease at seedling and adult plant stage exhibited high association, although level of infection was higher at adult plant stage. In glasshouse 65 genotypes at seedling stage and in field experiment 14 genotypes at pod formation stage were resistant to the pathogen. Following green house and field screening methods, six genotypes FLIP98-229C, FLIP82-150C,NCS 950204, NCS 950219, NCS 9903 and PaidarxParbat from NARC and six lines (FLIP 00-20C, FLIP 02-18C, FLIP 02-44C, FLIP 97-120C, FLIP 02-39C and FLIP 97-102C) from ICARDA found resistant for multilocational / agronomic evaluation and use as resistant parent trials for high yielding AB resistance breeding varieties.