Location: Grain Legume Genetics Physiology Research
Project Number: 2090-21000-038-016-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2024
End Date: Jan 8, 2027
Objective:
Chickpea has been a component of human diets for several thousand years and was the second most important pulse crop in terms of global production in 2022. Chickpea is produced in dryland agricultural systems throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, and most U.S. production is exported. Malnutrition is prevalent in several global regions where chickpea is a major food crop, including South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Enhancing nutritional qualities of chickpea has been proposed for reducing malnutrition. This requires an understanding of how genetic (G), environment (E) and G x E interaction effects influence a range of nutritional qualities. The objectives of this research are: 1) Determine the stability of several nutritional characteristics, including seed concentrations of iron, zinc, protein, and dietary fiber, among a collection of USDA chickpea cultivars and breeding lines, and 2) Identify genetic markers and candidate genes associated with chickpea nutritional qualities.
Approach:
The approach for Objective 1 is as follows: Every year USDA conducts field evaluations of advanced chickpea breeding lines and cultivars at several locations across the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Each location includes replicated plots for each entry planted in a randomized complete block design. During the growing season each plot will be evaluated for a range of agronomic traits including days to flower, days to mature, and plant height. All plots will be mechanically harvested, cleaned, and weighed. Seed samples from each plot will be sent to Clemson University for determining nutritional qualities. Seed concentrations of iron and zinc will be determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Seed concentrations of fiber and protein will be determined by Fourier Transformed-Mid Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-MIR). Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) will be performed to partition variance components conditioning nutritional qualities. The stability of nutritional qualities will be examined using Genotype + Genotype x Environment (GGE) analysis.
The approach for Objective 2 is as follows: A chickpea diversity panel consisting of 256 accessions will be grown in the field at Pullman, WA to detect marker-trait associations. All plots will be mechanically harvested, cleaned, and weighed. Seed concentrations of iron, zinc, protein and dietary fiber will be determined at Clemson University as described above. Marker-trait associations will be detected by genome-wide association methods. The position of significant markers will be identified on the reference genome “CDC Frontier” to identify potential candidate genes. Functional annotation of candidate genes will be determined using the NCBI non-redundant protein database.
