Investment

Botrytis grey mould (BGM), caused by Botrytis cinerea in chickpea and B. cinerea and B. fabae in lentils, poses a significant biotic stress challenge to Australian pulse production. While some Australian lentil varieties show moderate resistance to BGM, all current chickpea varieties are susceptible.
Limited information exists regarding the identification and genetic characterisation of resistant germplasm in these crops. This project aims to develop high-throughput phenotyping methods in both controlled environments and the field, leveraging existing knowledge from the project team and international collaborators. The team will optimise controlled environment phenotyping assays suitable for adoption by breeding programs. Field trials will be conducted for both chickpea and lentils, with a focus on lentils involving field phenotyping and multispectral imagery collected from a UAV coupled with machine learning techniques.
The insights gained from this innovative UAV field phenotyping may have broader applications beyond BGM, potentially benefiting chickpea and other pulse crops. The project aims to deliver optimised controlled environment and field phenotyping approaches, along with identified resistance germplasm, to chickpea and lentil breeders by project completion.