Determination of the resistance to chickpea blight caused by Ascochyta rabiei in national registered chickpea genotypes and some international breeding lines by marker-assisted selection and classical reaction tests

Ascochyta blight is one of the most important diseases of chickpea in the world and in our country. The pathogen, Ascochyta rabiei, has four pathotypes that can be separated from each other according to their reaction to certain varieties. There are different sources of resistance to this pathogen. The SCARE19, SCY17, SCK13 SCAR markers, CaETR Fw-Rev 1, CaETR Fw-Rev 1-Rev 2 allele specific markers, GAA47 and TA146 STMS markers associated with these resistance sources are frequently used in resistant chickpea breeding studies. In this study, the resistance characteristics of the chickpea varieties commonly grown in Turkey and genotypes widely used for phenotypic characterization of pathogen isolates were determined with molecular markörs and pathogenicity assays. In addition, the resistance status of the varieties and genotypes was characterized by the markers. As a result of the tests, the numbers of individuals resistant to pathotypes I, II, III and IV were 35, 19, 5 and 2, respectively. ARDA variety and ICC 3996 genotype were found to be resistant to all 4 pathotypes. Correlation analysis revealed no marker correlation for phenotypic resistance to pathotype I and IV. However, the data obtained as a result of the evaluation of the GAA47 STMS marker combaning with the SCAE19, SCY17 and SCK13 marker showed a significant correlation with the resistance to pathotype I at p≤0.05. Significant correlations were found between resistance to pathotype II and markers SCY17, SCAE19, SCK13 and TA146 at p≤0.01 and between phenotypic resistance to pathotype III and the markers except from SCY17 at p≤0.05. No marker associated with resistance to all pathotypes has been identified. Because of the increasing prevalence of pathotypes III and IV, marker identification studies related to resistance to these pathotypes are critical.