Screening chickpea germplasm for ascochyta blight resistance

The ascochyta blight resistance of 14 chickpea cultivars, 29 imported chick pea lines and 38 local breeding lines to four Australian isolates of Ascoch yta rabiei was investigated. Each isolate was tested individually on each c hickpea genotype. There were no differences between the four isolates in th eir pathogenicity. However, there were large differences between chickpea g enotypes in the expression of disease symptoms. All of the Australian chick pea cultivars tested were susceptible to A. rabiei. Seven imported lines an d three local breeding lines were found to be resistant to A. rabiei. The e ight isolates of A. rabiei tested in these studies were all the same mating type, i.e. MAT1-1.