AGRO-MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND GENETIC STUDY OF NEW IMPROVED LINES AND CULTIVARS OF CHICKPEA (CICER ARIETINUM L.)

Abstract

The genetic resources of chickpea (Cicer arietinum, L.) are threatened by the decreasing of its cultivation throughout the world, in most producing countries. So efforts are displayed to alleviate this situation by releasing new well adapted cultivars. The post-harvest data of new chickpea lines and their describing in the different states of agro-morphological development are important and useful in the characterization, evaluation and identification of best lines. This study deals with an agro-morphological characterization of a new genetic material composed of sixteen improved winter chickpea lines which were submitted to a describing with twenty five agro-morphological characters of UPOV’s chickpea descriptors (2005). The comparison of the eleven new inbreeding lines with the five witnesses varieties of the collection (Kasseb, Chetoui, Bouchra, Neyer and Beja1) showed that the characters of earliness, tallness and size of grain were improved for all the genetic material and especially for the new lines which were superior to the witnesses varieties (spring of high yield, tolerance to Ascochyta blight and tallness). The two lines 6 and 5 proved to be the best of the collection for most of   all studied characters such as precocity, size of pods, size of grains, the duration of the cycle of maturation and in more for number of pods of two grains per plant, number of grains per plant and yield of grain. They have also tall plants, favoring them for a mechanized harvest.  These results allow line 6 and line 5 to be selected as lines of  the highest capacity of yield, growth and adaptability and can also be used in other genetic programs of improvement.