Disease Resistance in Chickpea - Translational Genomics for Crop Breeding: Biotic Stress - page 213

management must be employed. Even if com-
plete resistance is available as in fusarium wilt
resistance, we still need to develop and employ
integrated disease management in order to pre-
serve and prolong the effectiveness of the resis-
tant cultivars.
Integrated disease management should be
developed locally because cultural practices,
climate conditions, social-economic conditions,
and regulations vary. For instance, there are
mostly small and subsistence farmers in North
Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian sub-
continent, while there are mostly large-scale and
modernized farmers in developed and industrial-
ized countries. Consequently many management
practices cannot be applied globally.
Ascochyta blight can be managed using mod-
erately resistant cultivars in combination with a
number of cultural practices and fungicide appli-
cation (Pande et al. 2005a; Gan et al. 2006;
Davidson and Kimber 2007; Singh et al. 2007).
Shtienberg and colleagues (2000) demonstrated
that a contribution of up to 70% of AB control
was achieved by using moderately resistant cul-
tivars when weather conditions supported severe
epidemics; fungicides improved control efficacy
significantly, to

tionally, biological control using Trichoderma
viride (Nikam et al. 2007), soil amendment with
groundnut and neem cakes, and seed treatment
with BION have also been reported to be efficient
against wilt (Sarwar et al. 2010).
Integrated management of BGM relies mainly
on cultural practices to ensure good aeration by
using erect varieties, increasing inter-row spac-
ing and reducing the plant population density
(Reley et al. 2011), and late sowing in certain
areas, since genetic resistance to BGM in chick-
pea is partial and scarce. Indeed few varieties
with partial resistance have been developed. In
Nepal, moderate resistance to BGM was com-
bined with resistance to Foc (Pande et al. 2005b),
and with resistance to AB (Pande et al. 2006b).
Seed dressing and crop rotation are also very
important and reduce the risk of early infec-
tion. Foliar fungicides can ensure some protec-
tion to the crop when the disease is detected
at its early stage by frequent crop monitor-
ing. In Nepal, an integrated disease manage-
ment (IDM) program increased grain yield by
400% and farmers' net income by 300% (Pande
et al. 2006a).

95%. Using non-infected seeds
and seed treatment with appropriate fungicides
is also critical. Foliar protection is mainly rec-
ommended, particularly during the reproductive
stage (Chongo and Gossen 2001). Shtienberg and
colleagues (2000) concluded that winter sow-
ing of chickpea is feasible in the Middle East if
adequate suppression of AB is achieved. Other
practices, including adjusting (delaying) sowing
dates (Dusunceli et al. 2007), rotation of chick-
pea production fields (Reley et al. 2011), deep
plowing (van Gastel et al. 2007), and appro-
priately reducing plant population density (Gan
et al. 2007) could also be recommended.
Management of Foc relies mainly on genetic
resistance, crop rotation, and use of disease-free
and treated seeds. Nowadays, there are several
Kabuli and Desi chickpea varieties combining
resistance to AB and Foc that could be rec-
ommended for use in Foc-infested fields. Addi-

>

Conclusions and Future Prospects

Chickpea breeding programs need to be focused
on selection of high yielding varieties for dif-
ferent cropping systems, taking into consider-
ation the specificity of this crop and the need
for varieties resistant to several major biotic
and abiotic stresses. Genetic gain using conven-
tional breeding methods is limited in this crop,
but molecular breeding presents new prospects
for the future. Chickpea is one of the pulses
where major progress has been achieved in the
use of marker-assisted selection, numerous sim-
ple sequence repeat (SSR) and SNP resources
have been developed, and the chickpea genetic
map density has been considerably increased
(Varshney et al. 2010, Kumar et al. 2011). In pre-
vious sections of this chapter it has been shown
that there are markers available for targeting
resistance for major biotic stresses, and efforts