Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.): A Current Review

Abstract

Chickpeas are a rich source of dietary protein and phenolic bioactives that promote human health, and they are widely used as food and culinary ingredients in current and ethnic cuisines around the world. Due to its natural drought and heat tolerance, chickpea will become increasingly important with climate change. Chickpea is an indeterminate crop flowering over a long period of time, with leaf and branch formation continuing during pod filling. The early stages of plant inflorescence growth are just as important as the later stages of floral development. During those early phases, certain properties, such as inflorescence architecture and flower developmental timings, are defined. A variety of climatic and environmental conditions influence chickpea growth, development, and grain yield. Chickpea production gets hampered by climatic extremes such as unpredictable rainfall, very hot and low temperatures, drought. Environmental factors like as salinity and nutrient deprivation have a significant impact on global chickpea productivity. Every year, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceris causes massive yield losses in chickpeas. Other effective biotic stress factors are root diseases (collar rot, and dry root rot), and foliar diseases (Ascochyta blight, Botrytis grey mold). In this review, some valuable information related to chickpea is extracted from international articles published mostly in last year and presented here.

Identifying Chickpea Genotypes Rich in Ascorbic Acid as a Source of Drought Tolerance for Genetic Improvement in Semi-Arid Regions

“…Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the third most important legume globally (Arriagada et al, 2022), with an evolutionary progenitor from hot and dry regions in Syria and Egypt. Chickpea is cultivated in 50 countries, mainly in semi-arid agroecologies, with India contributing to 70% of global chickpea production (Korbu et al, 2020;Dürdane, 2022). The main chickpea-producing nations in eastern and southern Africa are Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Sudan, with vast expansion potential in several countries within Sub-Saharan Africa.…”

“…The main chickpea-producing nations in eastern and southern Africa are Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Sudan, with vast expansion potential in several countries within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, climate extremes such as unpredictable rainfall and drought hamper chickpea production worldwide (Dürdane, 2022), with drought alone accounting for 40-45% of chickpea yield losses (La et al, 2022).…”