Genomics Of Chickpea Domestication

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a widely cultivated food legume that was domesticated along with other founder crops in the fertile crescent 8,000-10,000 ya.  To characterize the impact of domestication on molecular diversity, and to identify genes underlying domestication-related traits, we have used high-throughput genotyping of germplasm accessions of chickpea and its wild annual relatives and recombinant inbred populations.  From phenotypic analysis in these genetic stocks we have identified multiple QTLs for the agronomic traits of flowering time, growth habit and seed color.  We identified candidate genes in genetic intervals containing these QTLs from in silico analysis of the chickpea draft genome sequences.  Results from ongoing studies to examine trait-to-gene associations in these agronomic trait QTL regions will be presented.