ICRISAT Develops 3 New Drought-Resistant Chickpeas

Hyderabad: Premier city-based agri-research organisation, ICRISAT, on Tuesday said it has developed three new chickpea varieties with traits like enhanced drought tolerance, disease resistance and high yield.

The chickpea varieties, IPC L4-14, BGM 4005 and IPCMB 19-3, have been developed in collaborations with ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), Kanpur, and ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi.
As per ICRISAT, after evaluation at several locations under no-irrigation conditions for many years, the new varieties reported a 14.76% and 11.9% overall mean yield advantage over their parental lines.

These varieties have been notified for cultivation by the Central Varietal Release Committee and have been released for cultivation in Punjab, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh.

Commenting on the development, Trilochan Mohapatra, secretary, department of agricultural research, and director general, ICAR, said, “Genomics driven interventions to enhance crop yield and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses are the need of the hour under changing climate. Thirty-five varieties of different crops with special traits including climate resilience were dedicated to India by the Prime Minister and two of these were chickpea varieties developed in partnership with ICRISAT.”

“These new varieties are well poised to strengthen food and nutrition security as well as livelihoods in India by providing adaptation mechanisms to the climate related challenges confronting the agriculture sector,” said Jacqueline Hughes, director general, ICRISAT.

Stating that research in chickpea is necessary, Arvind Kumar, deputy director general – research at ICRISAT, pointed out that drought conditions cause up to 60% annual yield losses in chickpea.

Source: ToI