Australia: Accelerated breeding used for the genetic gain in chickpeas
Dried Chickpea
Australia
Published Mar 27, 2023
Tridge summary
The team that produced the world’s first accelerated plant breeding platform based on the use of LED lights has now realised a long-sought chickpea breeding goal – they have produced a chickpea population that stably incorporates novel genetic diversity sourced from a wild species.
Original content
The same team that first used indoor LED lights to reduce generation times within a number of crop breeding programs has now successfully achieved another important milestone, with important benefits to legume growers. In a novel application of this pioneering accelerated-Single Seed Descent (aSSD) technology, the gene pool of domesticated chickpeas was successfully diversified using genetics sourced from the wild chickpea species, Cicer echinospermum. A population of 800 inbred chickpea lines with enhanced genetic diversity are now publicly available at the Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) as a result of GRDC investment. The project overcame the main obstacle holding back both chickpea breeding and the crop’s wider adoption across different growing zones: namely, chickpea’s overly narrow gene pool that has limited the crop’s environmental adaptiveness and its resilience. Researcher Dr Janine Croser explains that aSSD is a complete plant growth system developed by her team at the ...
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