Comparison of phenotypic and marker-assisted selection in Turkish cultivars and global genotypes of chickpea for resistance to pathotypes of Ascochyta rabiei (Pass.) Labr.

Abstract

The pathotypes of Ascochyta rabiei, which causes ascochyta blight, show a high pathogenic variation. Forty-four chickpeas, including 26 cultivars commonly cultivated in Turkey and 18 global genotypes, were characterized for resistance status to ascochyta blight following inoculation with four pathotypes of A. rabiei. The pathogenicity experiments were conducted using the whole-plant inoculation method and completely randomized designs with three replicates. The pathogenicity tests revealed that 32, 17, 3, and 1 chickpea showed resistance reactions to pathotypes I, II, III, and IV, respectively. These chickpeas were genotyped with STMS (GAA47, TA146, and TA194), SCAR (SCK13603, SCAE19336, and SCY17590), and an allele-specific (CaETR) MAS markers closely linked to QTLs located on linkage groups 2 and 4 for ascochyta blight resistance. QTLAR1 predicted blight resistance to pathotype I with a rate of 65.9%. Strong correlations at P