Take home message

CBA Captain is a new broadly adapted desi chickpea variety for the northern region and other chickpea growing areas of Australia. The variety was evaluated as CICA1521 and has higher yields in northern NSW and southern QLD than PBA HatTrick. CBA Captain has a medium seed size and is expected to have similar disease ratings to PBA HatTrick. Seed of CBA Captain is available in the northern region for the 2021 season from the following seed partners; Galleon Grains, PB Agrifood, PB Seeds and Woods Seeds.

Significant yield advantage over PBA HatTrick

CBA Captain has been included in National Variety Trials (NVT) since 2015. During this six-year period there have been two favourable seasons in north west NSW (2016 and 2020) and a number of dry seasons (2018 and 2019). CBA Captain has shown great consistency in yield despite the highly variable seasons. In the southern areas of north-west NSW, CBA Captain has consistent yield gains over PBA HatTrick (Table 1). At the time of writing this paper, the long term yield reporter using 2020 trials were not available. Readers are encouraged to visit NTV online.

Table 1. Long term yield (2015-2019) of CBA Captain and current chickpea varieties, expressed as a % of the mean yield, in NVT in Trangie, Narromine and Coonamble.  The mean yield of all varieties in each of the 5 contributing trials was used to assign that trial to a ‘yield grouping’.  This enables varietal performance to be better evaluated in different yield situations

Source: https://app.nvtonline.com.au/lty/table/chickpea-desi/nsw/nw/trangie,narromine,coonamble/?lty-type=yield&stacked=1

Table 2. Long term yield (2015-2019) of CBA Captain and current chickpea varieties, expressed as a % of the mean yield, in NVT at Bellata, north west NSW.  The mean yield of all varieties in each of the 4 contributing trials was used to assign that trial to a ‘yield grouping’.  This enables varietal performance to be better evaluated in different yield situations

Source: https://app.nvtonline.com.au/lty/table/chickpea-desi/nsw/ne/bellata/?lty-type=yield&stacked=1

Ascochyta blight

CBA Captain has undergone Ascochyta blight (AB) testing in the field at Tamworth and Horsham as well as single isolate testing under controlled conditions in Adelaide and Tamworth.

An increase in the aggressiveness of the AB pathogen has been observed both in the northern and southern regions (Ford et al., 2018). Increased levels of disease have been recorded on CBA Captain and other varieties such as PBA Seamer from these isolates collected in 2017 compared to isolates collected in 2015 (Table 3). The distribution of the more aggressive isolates in the northern region is currently unknown, due to the reduced chickpea area and dry seasons over the past two years, however a cautious disease rating from the NVT pulse disease rating system for CBA Captain is expected. For northern isolates this is likely to be a Moderately Susceptible rating for Ascochyta blight. At the time of writing this paper the 2021 NVT pulse disease ratings were unavailable. Readers are encouraged to visit NTV online for updated AB ratings.

Table 3. Mean disease index of chickpea varieties in single isolate AB screening conducted at Adelaide. The index is calculated as the sum of (% main stems broken + % of stems with lesions + % side branches with disease + % leaves with disease) divided by 4. (0 = healthy plant, 100 = heavily diseased plant)

Phytophthora root rot

CBA Captain was included in Phytophthora root rot (PRR) yield loss trials conducted at Warwick QLD, over several years (Table 4). Yield losses for CBA Captain from PRR in these trials have ranged from 38.7 to 93.4 %. Similar variability in yield loss has also been observed for PBA HatTrick; an explanation of the seasonal impacts on yields and varietal PRR disease rankings is provided in Bithell et al., 2018. In 2020, NVT pulse disease rating testing was conducted for PRR for the first time. It is expected that a review of all variety ratings for PRR will be conducted to align with the NVT disease rating definitions. The 2020 ratings were not available at the time of writing this report, please see nvtonline.com.au for updated ratings.

Table 4. Yield (t/ha) in the absence of PRR and yield loss (%) from PRR across 2016 to 2018 for CBA Captain and other current chickpea varieties. Adapted from Bithell et al., 2018, Bithell et al., 2019

Phenology and other agronomic traits

CBA Captain is early flowering when sown in the mid-May to mid-June sowing window, approximately six days earlier than PBA HatTrick (Table 5). Flowering data collected from early May sown chilling tolerance trials (BLG111) indicates that CBA Captain can flower up to 24 days earlier than PBA HatTrick depending on winter daytime temperatures. An increased understanding of the drivers of chickpea phenology is expected with new GRDC investments in this area. Although there is some data indicating that CBA Captain may produce pods earlier in some environments (e.g. Kingaroy, 2019), it is expected that days to first pod is similar to current varieties.

Table 5. Phenology data (2017-2020) collected for CBA Captain and current chickpea varieties from breeding and chilling tolerance trials in northern NSW and southern QLD

DTF = days to flower from sowing
DTP = days to pod from sowing

CBA Captain has early to mid-maturity, earlier than PBA HatTrick. CBA Captain has an erect plant type with good height to lowest pod and plant height. Under the high biomass producing conditions of 2016 and 2020, CBA Captain had less lodging than PBA HatTrick at seven sites across northern NSW and southern QLD (Table 6).

Table 6. Mean lodging score at northern NSW and southern QLD breeding sites in 2016 and 2020 for CBA Captain and current chickpea varieties. 1 = erect, 9 = flat.

In December 2020, Tamworth Agricultural Institute received more than 240 mm of rain. Plots of CBA Captain were observed to have remained standing with good harvestability compared to PBA HatTrick which had lodged considerably.

In 2019 and 2020, large seed multiplications and demonstration blocks of CBA Captain were harvested by commercial harvesters throughout the northern region. No negative feedback regarding the harvestability of CBA Captain were reported.

Grain quality

CBA Captain has a yellow-brown seed coat and angular seed shape, not unlike PBA HatTrick. The seed size of CBA Captain is larger than PBA HatTrick, similar to PBA Seamer and PBA Drummond but smaller than Kyabra (Table 7). CBA Captain has a higher or similar split yield than PBA HatTrick and PBA Drummond at six sites across southern QLD and northern NSW.

Table 7. Seed size (grams per 100 seeds) and split yield % (SY%) for CBA Captain and other current chickpea varieties at six sites in northern NSW and southern QLD

100SW = grams per 100 seeds
SY% = split yield % (yield of dhal using a standard SKE milling method without pre-conditioning seeds; Wood et al 2008).

Seed partners

CBA Captain will be delivered to the northern region through the following seed partners; Galleon Grains, PB Agrifood, PB Seeds and Woods Seeds to distribute seed to QLD and NSW.

Acknowledgements

CBA Captain was developed by the PBA Chickpea program (led by NSW Department of Primary Industries). The partners of the PBA Chickpea program were: GRDC, NSW DPI, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (QLD), Agriculture Victoria and the South Australian Research and Development Institute.

The research undertaken as part of this project is made possible by the significant contributions of growers through trial cooperation and the co-investment of the GRDC. The authors would like to thank them for their continued support.

References

Bithell S., Kelly L., Hobson K., Harden S., Martin W., Chiplin G. and Moore K.  Phytophthora in chickpea varieties 2016 and 2017 trials – resistance and yield loss. (2018)

Bithell S., Hobson K., Martin W., Ryan M., Harden S. and Moore K. Latest research on chickpea Phytophthora root rot –reduced yield losses in crosses with wild Cicer relatives. (2019).

Ford R., Moore K., Sambasivan P., Mehmood Y., Hobson K., Walela C., Brand J. and Davidson J. Why adhering to integrated Ascochyta rabiei management strategy is now more important than ever to sustain a profitable chickpea industry. (2018).

Wood J.A., Knights E.J. and Harden S. (2008). Milling performance in desi-type chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.): effects of genotype, environment and seed size. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 88, 108-115.

Contact details

Kristy Hobson
Chickpea Breeding Australia
New South Wales Department of Primary Industries
4 Marsden Park Rd,  Calala NSW 2340
Ph: 02 6763 1174
Email: Kristy.hobson@dpi.nsw.gov.au

Varieties displaying this symbol beside them are protected under the Plant Breeders Rights Act 1994

GRDC Project Code: DAN00094, DAN00151, DAN00176, DAN00212, BLG205, BLG209, BLG111, 9177999,