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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Pullman, Washington » Grain Legume Genetics Physiology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #307666
Title: Registration of 'Nash' Chickpea

Author
item Vandemark, George
item GUY, STEVEN - Washington State University
item Chen, Weidong
item MCPHEE, KEVIN - North Dakota State University
item Pfaff, Jarrod
item LAUVER, MARY - Washington State University
item Muehlbauer, Frederick

Submitted to: Journal of Plant Registrations
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/8/2014
Publication Date: 5/1/2015
Citation: Vandemark, G.J., Guy, S.O., Chen, W., Mcphee, K., Pfaff, J.S., Lauver, M., Muehlbauer, F.J. 2015. Registration of 'Nash' Chickpea. Journal of Plant Registrations. doi: 10.3198/jpr2014.07.0047crc.

Interpretive Summary: Chickpea was among the first crops to be domesticated during the advancement of Neolithic culture that occurred 12,000-8,000 years ago in the Near East. Chickpeas have been historically grown in rotations with wheat and barley, which confer several benefits to small grain production including the disruption of cereal disease cycles and increasing availability of residual nitrogen produced in chickpea roots. Chickpeas are primarily grown in the United States in WA and ID. The value of a chickpea crop is influenced by both yield and seed size. Larger seeds are more desirable in the whole seed markets and have a higher value than smaller seeds, which are typically processed into hummus. Over a recent five year period (2009-2013), large chickpeas have received an average price of $0.80 kg-1, which is 48% higher than the average price of $0.54 kg-1 received for small chickpeas. This manuscript describes the development of ‘Nash’ chickpea, which was released by the USDA-ARS in July 2013. Nash was released because of its superior yield and large seed size compared to the popular chickpea cultivar ‘Sierra’. Nash will be a promising alternative to Sierra as a high-yielding large-seeded chickpea cultivar.

Technical Abstract: The kabuli chickpea (Cicer arientinum L.) cultivar ‘Nash’ was released by the USDA-ARS in 2013 based on both its high yield and large seed size compared to the popular commercial chickpea cultivars ‘Sierra’ and ‘Sawyer’. Nash is an F5 derived line from the cross HB-19/CA9783142 and was evaluated in yield trials during 2008-2013 across 30 location-years in ID and WA. Nash had similar performance as Sierra and Sawyer for several important agronomic traits including days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, and canopy height. Nash also exhibited moderate resistance to Ascochyta blight, caused by Ascochyta rabiei (Pass.) Labrousse, similar to the disease reactions of Sierra and Sawyer. The mean yield of Nash over all trials was 1817 kg ha-1, which was 16.0 and 3.9% higher than the mean yields of Sierra and Sawyer, respectively. Perhaps as important as its higher yield is that seed size of Nash was greater than Sierra and Sawyer. Two different measures of seed size were used: 1) weight of 100 seeds, and 2) percentage of seeds with a diameter greater than 9.1 mm. The value of a chickpea crop is influenced by the size of the harvested seed, with large seeds (= 9.0 mm diameter across the long axis) typically receiving a higher price than smaller seeds. Nash will be a promising alternative to Sierra as a high-yielding large-seeded chickpea cultivar.