Chellapilla Bharadwaj

Title : Prebreeding and germplasm enhancement in chickpea: A way forward for pulse sustainability

Abstract:

Precise phenotyping and expensive phenotyping platforms have been a bottleneck for chickpea improvement, recent advances in genomics technologies and the availability of ample genotyping platforms have made the cost of genotyping much cheaper in comparison to phenotyping. With the advent of FIGS approach, development of TILLING population and identification of putative candidate genes for various stresses both biotic and abiotic, prebreeding and germplasm enhancement through targeted introgression of genomic regions from wild species and landraces appears a way out for base broadening and improvement of pulse crops. QTLs from donor ICC 4958 has led to development of drought tolerant introgression lines BGM 10216, 10218, BG 3097, BG 4005 into AICRP programme. These lines are carrying the drought QTL on LG4 and are showing better yield (ranging from 10-12 %) over the recurrent parent. Wilt QTLs on LG 2, from the donor WR 315 have been introgressed into the lines BGM 20211, 20212 which have proved their superiority and were released as WRIL variety Pusa Chickpea Manav.  Genomic selection by way of development of training population and model fitting has been done in chickpea for yield improvement. Thus, the recent developments in sequencing technologies, saturated genetic maps, QTL maps as well as sequencing are greatly helping in using marker assisted technologies to be applied in pre breeding and germplasm enhancement of pulse crops. Genomics-assisted breeding for marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) for introgressing QTL region, marker assisted recurrent selection, gene pyramiding, marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection are now underway routinely for pulse crop improvement.
Audience Take Away:

• Pre breeding, Genomic selection for crop improvement?
• Modern molecular techniques can be used for crop improvement?
• Yes, this research that other faculty could use to expand their both research and/or teaching.
• This technology has already been applied for developing improved chickpea cultivars
• It leads to precision breeding.

Biography:

Dr. C. Bharadwaj Principal Scientist, Division of Genetics, ICAR-IARI & Hon Adjunct Assoc. Prof, The UWA IoA, The UWA, Australia after completing his doctoral has joined as the presitigious ICAR as an Agricultural Research Scientist in 1197 at Indian Institute of Soybean Research Institute India. He joined the Chickpea Breeding and Molecular Breeding programmes in 2007. He has 16 chickpea varieties and 150 papers in reputed journals to his credit. Specializing in chickpea pre-breeding, germplasm improvement and resilience breeding and yield improvement using genomic and conventional tools, he has guided seven doctoral and five postgraduate students as Chairman.