Next Generation Genomics and Breeding Approaches For Developing Climate-Resilient Chickpeas For South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

Climate change is a global phenomenon having tremendous impact on agriculture and the global temperature is predicted to rise by 2.5° to 4.3°C by the end of the century. In this context, developing climate resilient crop varieties remains a big challenge in addressing food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition in these regions. Genomics-assisted breeding approaches that include deployment of next generation sequencing (NGS) and high-throughput genotyping technologies coupled with modern breeding approaches such as marker-assisted selection (MAS), marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) and genomic selection (GS) are expected to help developing climate-resilient crop varieties. An example of chickpea, a leading legume important crop in Asia and sub-Sahara Africa but suffering with low yield, will be presented to highlight the role of next generation of genomics and breeding approaches for developing climate-resilient varieties. For instance, as a result of efforts of ICRISAT and its partner institutes, significant amount of genomic resources like simple sequence repeats (SSRs), single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, diversity array technology (DArT), high-density genetic maps, transcriptome assembly and genome sequence have been developed. By using these resources on several mapping populations, molecular markers have been identified associated with tolerance to abiotic stresses like drought, heat and salinity and resistance to Fusarium wilt and Aschocyta blight. MAS, MARS and GS approaches are being used to develop superior lines with enhanced resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In some cases, some promising lines with higher (upto 22%) yield have been identified in targeted environments. Updated results will be presented in the conference.