The Project Planning Meeting of the deployment of molecular markers in chickpea breeding for developing superior cultivars with enhanced disease resistance – (A Chickpea Molecular Breeding Network Proposal) funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (Happenings 1385) was held on 29 October. This is the first ever meeting of ICRISAT and its partners since the sanction of this project. A draft work plan, which is the road map for the project, was developed and circulated and this will be further fine-tuned in due course. The project is expected to initiate molecular breeding activities with the objective of developing superior lines of chickpea with enhanced resistance to Fusarium wilt and Ascochyta blight.

Hector Hernandez, addressing the gathering on behalf of the Director General congratulated all the scientists from ICRISAT and collaborating institutes for writing a successful proposal. He called upon the research community to find solutions to problems brought about by population growth, climatic change, and land degradation in SAT areas. He emphasized the role of genomics tools to predict the needs of the poor farmers, and the synergies that will result from the close work of plant biotechnologists and breeders on research outputs.

Rajeev Varshney, Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-PIs Pooran Gaur, C Sivakumar, Suresh Pande, Mamta Sharma and Abhishek Rathore, collaborative partners including Drs Anita Babbar, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur; Om Gupta and Navinder Saini from Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, were also present.

Source: ICRISAT Happenings