The Quantitative Genetics of Flowering Traits in Wide Crosses of Chickpea

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most ımportant food legume crops in the world. Chickpea is valued for its nutritive seed composition, which is high in protein content and used increasingly as a substitute for animal protein. Days to fırst flowerıng is an important component of the adaptation and productivity of chickpea in rainfed environments characterized by terminal drought and heat stress. This study aimed to identify the inheritance pattern and identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for days to first flowering and flowering color in F2:4 generation nested association mapping (NAM) populations of chickpea obtained using wide crosses between Gokce as the cultivated variety and wild accessions of C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum. A total of ten populations of 113 to 191 individuals each were grown under field conditions near Sanliurfa, Turkey. Two populations were genotyped for 46 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, enabling QTL analysis. Flowering time differed between families, with the frequency distributions indicating quantitative inheritance controlled by both genes of major and minor effects. Three significant QTLs for the flowering time were mapped in one mapping family. For flower color, chi-square tests showed that five populations accepted single-gene action, two populations accepted two-gene action, and three populations accepted neither model. Two significant QTLs at three genomic regions were identified across the two genotyped populations. Days to first flowering was positively correlated with flower color for two of the ten populations. The diversity of QTLs identified underscored the potential of crop wild relatives of chickpea as sources of novel alleles for chickpea breeding.

Stability in Phenology, Yield and Yield Attributes of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes under Various Temperature Conditions

“…Chickpea flowering and podding are highly sensitive to changes in the external environment, with drastic reductions in seed yields reported when plants are exposed to high temperatures [1]. Normally, in rainfed areas characterized by terminal drought and heat stress, days to first flowering are a significant component of chickpea adaptability and yield [2]. Chickpeas are well tailored for growth and pod filling in a range of temperatures 15 -30 o C [3].…”

Unlocking the hidden variation from wild repository for accelerating genetic gain in legumes

“…Successful deployment of alien gene introgression has been reported in chickpea for developing improved varieties ( Bharadwaj et al., 2021 ), pre-breeding lines ( Malhotra et al., 2002 ), genetic stocks ( Singh et al., 2021b ), and mapping populations ( Singh et al., 2021b ; Lakmes et al., 2022 ). Several attempts were made to introgress the desirable traits from wild accession of chickpea into the cultivar background.…”

“…Several attempts were made to introgress the desirable traits from wild accession of chickpea into the cultivar background. Some of them includes: (i) Agronomic traits, such as early flowering ( Lakmes et al., 2022 ), early maturity ( Robertson et al., 1997 ), seed number per plant ( Gupta et al., 2017 ), and seed yield ( Gupta et al., 2017 ); (ii) High grain protein ( Singh and Pundir, 1991 ); (iii) Biotic stresses, such as bruchids ( Toker et al., 2021 ), cyst nematode ( Ahmad et al., 2013 ), pod borer ( Sharma et al., 2006 ), root knot and lesion nematode ( Reen et al., 2019 ), leaf minor ( Chrigui et al., 2020 ), Fusarium wilt ( Ahmad et al., 2013 ), botrytis ( Kaur et al., 2013 ), and Ascochyta blight ( Li et al., 2017 ); (iv) Abiotic stresses, such as salinity ( Srivastava et al., 2016 ), cold ( Mir et al., 2021 ), heat ( Toker et al., 2021 ), and drought ( Barmukh et al., 2022 ). These ILs have boosted chickpea productivity by harmonising crop phenology and improving tolerance to multiple stresses ( Malhotra et al., 2002 ; Singh et al., 2005 ; Barmukh et al., 2022 ).…”

“…These two species (viz., C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum ) were used to increase variability, transfer genes for several abiotic (viz., cold tolerance) and biotic (viz., wilt, root rot, ascochyta blight, and botrytis grey mold) stresses, and also to exploit higher heterosis ( Koseoglu et al., 2017 ; Singh et al., 2018b ) ( Sari et al., 2022 ; Singh et al., 2022b ).These two species were used to develop promising early maturing ILs with improved agronomic traits, including seed yield ( Sari et al., 2022 ; Singh et al., 2022b ). Furthermore, interspecific hybridization between commercial variety of the cultivated chickpea (viz., Gokce), and wild accessions belonging to C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum species helps to identify the QTLs associated with flower initiation and flower colour in NAM population ( Lakmes et al., 2022 ). In addition to C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum , several successful interspecific crosses were made between chickpea and C. cuneatum Hochst.…”

Genome-wide association analysis of stress tolerance indices in an interspecific population of chickpea

“…Both GWAS and QTL mapping studies were used to identify the genetic loci associated with various abiotic stresses including drought and heat stress (Jha et al, 2021). Nested association mapping (NAM) has been a valuable approach to dissecting the genetic architecture of complex quantitative traits (Gangurde et al, 2020;Lakmes et al, 2022). NAM population consists of multiple families of recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from multiple inbred lines crossed to a single reference inbred line (Yu et al, 2008).…”