Research that works for developing countries and AustraliaPlant health management for faba bean, chickpea and lentilsProject ID: CIM/2004/003: Plant health management for faba bean, chickpea and lentilsCollaborating Countries: BangladeshCommissioned Organisation: International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, SyriaProject Leader Dr Ashutosh Sarker Phone: 963 21 225012/225112 Fax: 963 21 225105/213490 Email: sarker@cgiar.org Collaborating Institutions:
Project Budget: $398,916Project Duration: 30/06/2004 - 30/06/2007Project Extension: 01/07/2007 - 30/06/2008ACIAR Research Program Manager Dr Paul Fox Project Overview Food legumes provide high quality protein at low cost. During growth these crops fix nitrogen and reduce inoculum build-up of cereal diseases. Chickpeas, faba beans and lentils are important in West Central, South and East Asia and North Africa. Diseases, however, are a major constraint to productivity and despite recent improvements further yield increases and greater sustainability of production are possible. Diseases, biology and host resistance will be examined through germplasm screenings to help identify new sources of disease resistance. This will also inform the development of disease management packages to be evaluated in farming systems. Benefits from better disease resistance and disease management technologies for lentil, chickpea and fababean will flow into the ACIAR mandate region in two main ways. ICARDA has many networks and collaborative projects for improvement of these crops in Asia and distributes better technologies and the products of its breeding programs to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Korea DPR, Korea Rep, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam. Benefits will also flow to Asia from a range of ACIAR projects which involve pulse improvement in Nepal, China, Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan and Iraq. Project Progress Reports Year One Several new resistant sources to major diseases affecting pulse crops were identified at ICARDA and will be shared with the Australian and other national breeding programs. Australian pulse varieties and advanced breeding lines have been exposed to potential pathogen diversity. This permitted a pre-emptive screening of Australian lines for diseases not yet encountered in Australia such as chickpea and lentil Fusarium wilts. Efforts have been deployed by Australian breeding programs to improve the levels of resistance to major diseases prevailing in Australia. A glasshouse screening method has been developed (University of Adelaide and SARDI) for an emerging faba bean leaf disease in southern Australia, Cercospora leaf spot. The method has enabled the identification of resistant breeding lines. Different isolates of the main pathogens affecting chickpea and faba bean were tested for their pathogenicity. No isolates were able to overcome the resistance that existed in the respective hosts of the test isolates. However, results did show that there were significant differences in isolate aggressiveness found amongst isolates of A. fabae and B. fabae of faba bean. Different factors influencing disease development (host plant resistance, fungicides spray (including new ones), sowing date(s) and timing of foliar application) of chickpea Ascochyta blight were studied, both at CLIMA Australia and in Syria, to refine the integrated disease management package identified earlier. This is to ensure cost effective production of chickpea and that the most appropriate chemicals are used only when necessary to avoid their adverse effect on the environment. Foliar sprays at 4 and 7 weeks after emergence were found essential to protect chickpea Kabuli (Flip 503 CLIMA, Flip 530 CLIMA and Flip97-537D CLIMA) and desi tolerant lines (FLIP 97-504 C) from chickpea Ascochyta blight. Two timely foliar sprays with Chlorothalonil were found more effective than 3 Mancozeb foliar sprays. Similar results were obtained at Tel Hadya, Syria, One single spray with chlorothalonil and or Ortiva, 6 weeks after emergence, was sufficient to contol the disease on the tolerant cultivars (Ghab 3 and Ghab 4). However, the susceptible cultivars (ILC 263 and Ghab 1) required 3 foliar sprays to control the disease. Environmental conditions and proximity to faba bean stubbles were found to be linked with the amount of A. fabae isolated from lesions on trap plants. Results showed a strong correlation between cumulative spore release and cumulative rainfall. A very strong correlation was evident between foliar infection in faba bean and seed discoloration scores due to Ascochyta blight. Of particular interest is the proportion of lines with very low scores for both foliar and seed infection. Experiments showed that the critical period for chocolate spot infection in faba bean occurred 6 to 9 weeks after sowing and that disease expression from these infections may not occur until after flowering. This finding is very important for timing the protective sprays against this disease. Results related to the timing of ascospore release for chickpea Ascochyta blight will be used to further refine and validate the "Chickpea Blight Appraisal" model. The concept of this model is to provide growers with a prediction of when ascospores showers are likely to occur, so that time of sowing and fungicide spray applications can be optimized to reduce the risk of yield limiting levels of chickpea Ascochyta blight. Seed testing for infection and discoloration by Ascochyta lentis has identified lentil breeding lines with resistance to pod and seed infection equal to or better than 'Northfield" (ILL5588). These include the lines 98-014L*00H050, CIPAL412, 97-004L*00H021, 97-021L*00H007 and 94-009L*99H158. This is very encouraging for the development of lentil cultivars with "dual resistance" to both Ascochyta lentis and Botrytis spp, thus requiring little need for protection by foliar fungicides. Year Two Several additional new sources of resistance to major diseases affecting pulse crops were identified at ICARDA and will be shared with the Australian and other national breeding programs. |
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