Abstract only

Food legumes have been an important part of human diets in Turkey. They are grown on 1.5 million ha which is about 12% of the total area de- voted to field crops (FAO, 2003).Among them, chic- kpeas (Cicer arietinum), lentils (Lens culinaris) and dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), respectively, are the most widely grown food legumes in Turkey. There are several biotic and abiotic stresses limiting yield in these crops. We have initiated a national project aimed at using molecular tools in breeding programs of chickpea, lentil and dry bean. Objectives of this project are 1) to map and tag genes associated with important agronomic traits, 2) to start marker- assisted selection (MAS), especially in disease re- sistance breeding, 3) to utilize additional gene pools through molecular tools to improve the important characteristics of food legumes. Crosses were made between parents, segre- gating for important agronomic traits. In addition to yield and its components, traits under evaluation are: Ascochyta blight resistance, seed size, cooking and roasting quality in chickpea; lodging and cold tole- rance in lentil; resistance to common mosaic virus; common bacterial and halo blight; tolerance to various abiotic stress conditions in dry bean. The develop- ment of RIL populations to evaluate complex cha- racters and to map genes is under way. Molecular markers that are reported to be linked to some of these characters (Kahraman et al., 2004; Tekeoglu et al., 2002; Miklas et al., 1993, 1996,2000) have been evaluated to validate their value for MAS in Turkish food legume breeding material. The preliminary results of these evaluations have been promising for MAS, especially in disease resistance breeding.

English

0409|AGRIS 0401|AL-Wheat Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection