The Development of a European and Mediterranean Chickpea Association Panel (EMCAP)

Abstract

Association panels represent a useful tool for quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and pre-breeding. In this study, we report on the development of a European and Mediterranean chickpea association panel as a useful tool for gene discovery and breeding. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most important food legumes worldwide and a key crop in the Mediterranean environments. The selection of genotypes followed criteria aimed to build a set of materials representative of the genetic diversity of chickpea germplasm focusing on the European and Mediterranean environments, which have largely been ignored to date. This tool can help breeders to develop novel varieties adapted to European and Mediterranean agro-ecosystems. Initially, 1931 chickpea accessions were phenotypically evaluated in a field trial in central Italy. From these, an association panel composed by 480 genotypes derived from single-seed descent was identified and phenotypically evaluated. Current and future phenotypic data combined with the genotypic characterization of the association panel will allow to dissect the genetic architecture of important adaptive and quality traits and accelerate breeding. This information can be used to predict phenotypes of unexploited chickpea genetic resources available in genebanks for breeding.

Characterization of Nutritional Quality Traits of a Common Bean Germplasm Collection

“…This was expected, as the literature is full of studies that have reported such observations for common bean [ 54 , 55 , 56 ]. This outcome is also consistent with what has been shown for other legume crops, such as chickpea [ 57 , 58 ], lentil [ 59 ], faba bean [ 60 ], soybean [ 61 ] and pea [ 62 ].…”

A comprehensive metabolomics and lipidomics atlas for the legumes common bean, chickpea, lentil and lupin

“…These variations likely originate from the two distinct domestication events, which took place in the Andes and Mesoamerica (Bellucci et al., 2014, 2023). Another example of metabolic diversity was observed between the domestication origin of desi and kabuli genotypes in chickpea; for example, the levels of two myrecetin glycosides in seeds and kaempferol derivatives in leaves were associated with the desi origin (Figure S4) (Rocchetti et al., 2020; Varshney et al., 2019). Overall, the observed intraspecific diversity enables the investigation and further uncovering of genes involved in the regulation of each individual chemical class by screening large populations diverging in their levels of metabolites of interest.…”

The ‘microbiome counterattack’: Insights on the soil and root‐associated microbiome in diverse chickpea and lentil genotypes after an erratic rainfall event

“…The open field experiment was conducted at the Azienda Pantanello (ALSIA research center), Southern Italy (40 23'031.4" N, 16 47'010.9 00 E) using four lentil (Colfiorito, Elsa, Eston, and Itaca) and four chickpea genotypes (An.Ca.1586, Nero Tolve, Pascià, and Sultano) provided by the INCREASE consortium (Bellucci et al, 2021) exploiting the single seed descent derived Intelligent Collections of chickpea (Rocchetti et al, 2020(Rocchetti et al, , 2022 and lentil (Guerra-García et al, 2021). Seeds were sown on 04 June 2021.…”