Screening chickpea germplasm for ascochyta blight resistance

The ascochyta blight resistance of 14 chickpea cultivars, 29 imported chickpea lines and 38 local breeding lines to four Australian isolates of Ascochyta rabiei was investigated. Each isolate was tested individually on each chickpea genotype. There were no differences between the four isolates in their pathogenicity. However, there were large differences between chickpea genotypes in the expression of disease symptoms. All of the Australian chickpea cultivars tested were susceptible to A. rabiei. Seven imported lines and three local breeding lines were found to be resistant to A. rabiei. The eight isolates of A. rabiei tested in these studies were all the same mating type, i.e. MAT1-1.