Investment

This project involving a collaboration between Western Australia Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), Murdoch University and Agriculture Victoria aims to initiate and lay the foundation of research and breeding for acid soil tolerance in chickpea. Under this one-year initiation phase, the project team will screen and genotype targeted germplasm collection and structured populations from crosses of cultivated varieties with wild relatives known to exhibit tolerance to soil acidity. The project will identify confirmed sources of inherent tolerance, bulk up seed for future research, fine tune phenotyping methodology under lab/glasshouse conditions and develop genetic (genomic) information that chickpea pre-breeders and breeders will use in developing varieties that would sustain yield potential of new chickpea varieties on acidic soils.