Resistance to Phytophthora medicaginis Hansen and Maxwell in wild Cicer species and its use in breeding root rot resistant chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Phytophthora root rot caused by Phytophthora medicaginis is a major disease of chickpea in Australia. Only partial resistance, derived from chickpea, is available in Australian cultivars. Five wild Cicer species were compared with chickpea cv. Jimbour (moderately resistant) in a field experiment. The proportions of accessions with significantly lower (P < 0.05) disease scores, where lower scores equate to higher resistance, were 9/9 for C. echinospermum, 9/21 for C. bijugum, 1/4 for C. judaicum, 1/29 for C. reticulatum, and 0/3 for C. pinnatifidum. The resistance of C. echinospermum (7/7 accessions) but not the other Cicer species was reproduced in a greenhouse test. Nine out of 30 chickpea × C. echinospermum-derived lines were as resistant as the C. echinospermum parents in a separate greenhouse experiment. C. echinospermum appears to be the best of the sources we examined for breeding chickpea cultivars resistant to P. medicaginis.