Performance of Winter-Sown Chickpea Breeding Lines with Contrasting Levels of Resistance to Ascochyta Blight

Abstract

Multi-environment field testing of chickpea accessions winter sown in Southern Spain showed that environmental effects on yield were more important than genotypic effects and GEI. The most detrimental factor on grain yield was ascochyta blight infection. We did not find a significant effect of low temperatures on yield in the environments studied, probably due to the mild winters in the area. On the contrary, we found detrimental effects of high temperatures at the reproductive stage, particularly with numbers of days with Tmax >30 °C. We found that genotypic effects were larger than the environmental on ascochyta infection as we included accessions previously selected for their levels of resistance or susceptibility. Biplots based on the WAASB/productivity ratio highlighted AS19, AS30, AS23, AS26, and AS18 accessions as the best for productivity and stability of yield, matching with those with a lower ascochyta blight infection. The MTSI index also identified these as the best accessions for the region.