Research out of Western Australia has identified valuable genetic material in wild species of chickpeas that may allow breeders to create tougher varieties of the nutritious legume, with better disease resistance and stress tolerance.
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The University of Western Australia (UWA), Murdoch University and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) have worked together to find wild relatives of today's domesticated crop with promising traits.
Chickpeas are a popular legume crop globally, however attempts to create better varieties are hampered by the plant's narrow genetic base.
The research project looked to broaden that base and has identified 24,827 gene families, along with successfully producing a 'super-pangenome' based on the genome assemblies of eight wild species from the Cicer genus, which also includes the domestic chickpea.
These eight mapped genomes were then compared against two domestic chickpea genomes to identify potentially useful traits.
Director of the Centre for Crop and Food Innovation at MU Rajeev Varshney, who coordinated the study as part of his long-term collaboration with UWA, said the researchers studied the genomes for genes related to key agronomic traits.
"Structural variations between cultivated and wild genomes were used to construct a graph-based genome, revealing variations in genes affecting traits such as flowering time, vernalisation and disease resistance," Prof Varshney said.
The super pan-genome, which will be based on graph, can be studied to allow easy marking of variations where useful traits are identified.
"These variations will facilitate the transfer of valuable traits from wild Cicer species into elite chickpea varieties through marker-assisted selection or gene-editing," he said.
"The genomic resources and unique genes presented in distant relatives of modern-day chickpeas in this new study will greatly benefit chickpea breeding and the advancement of the research community in this area in Australia and globally."
UWA Institute of Agriculture director Kadambot Siddique said the project could have global ramifications.
"Through these powerful partnerships, together we have unlocked new genetic insights that have the potential to significantly improve chickpea crop around the world," Prof Siddique said.
Prof Varshney said the study of wild relatives was an important step for chickpea breeders.
"Traditional and modern breeding efforts have improved chickpea productivity, but more exhaustive steps have been needed to meet the growing worldwide demand.
Globally Prof Varshney said around 17 million tonnes of chickpeas were grown annually.
In Australia production has been as high as 2 million tonnes in 2016-17, but has dropped as low as 500,000 tonnes in recent years due to seasonal and market access issues.
This year, growers have good soil moisture and access to the Indian market once again, so the industry is predicting a large plant.