A new batch of chickpea varieties has been notified for cultivation by the Central Varietal Release Committee with traits such as enhanced drought tolerance, disease resistance, and high yield.
| Variety | 100-seed weight (grams) | Maturity (days) | Average yield (kg per hectare) | Zone |
| IpC L4-14 | 16.6 | 128 to 133 | 1500 to 1600 | North West Plain Zone |
| BGM 4005 | 22.4 | 131 | 1600 to 1700 | North West Plain Zone |
| IPCMB 19-3 | 24.1 | 106 | 2000 to 2100 | Central Zone |
“Genomics driven interventions to enhance crop yield and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses are the need of the hour under changing climate. The national agricultural research system led by ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) has been working in this direction to develop high yielding and climate-resilient crop varieties. Thirty five varieties of different crops with special traits including climate resilience were dedicated to India by the Prime Minister. Two of these were chickpea developed in partnership with ICRISAT. I congratulate everyone involved in this collaborative effort and wish them more success in the future,” stated, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research, and Director General, ICAR, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra.
ICRISAT worked with the Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR) in Kanpur and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi to develop the new chickpea varieties, IPC L4-14, BGM 4005 and IPCMB 19-3. On September 28, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated BGM 4005 and IPCMB 19-3 to India.
“I am delighted to see the collaborative efforts of ICAR and ICRISAT benefit farmers. These new varieties are well poised to strengthen food and nutrition security as well as livelihoods in India by providing adaptation mechanisms to the climate-related challenges confronting the agriculture sector,” stated, Director General, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Dr. Jacqueline Hughes.
Dr Arvind KumarIn addition to pointing out the need for sustained and continued research to improve the crop, ICRISAT’s Deputy Director General – Research discussed the threat of drought in chickpea-growing regions of India. “Drought alone causes up to 60 per cent annual yield losses in chickpea. Changing climate warrants development of cultivars that can attain their maximum potential under drought stress in rain-fed environments as well as in disease prone-environments,” Dr Kumar stated.
IPC L4-14 and BGM 4005 are two drought-tolerant chickpea varieties. A QTL-hotspot (genes for drought tolerance) was transferred from the donor chickpea variety ICC 4958 into two leading parental chickpea varieties, DCP 92-3 and Pusa 362, respectively.
IPCMB 19-3, also called Samriddhi, can withstand Fusarium wilt. This variety showed a 30.3 per cent yield advantage over its parent variety Pusa 256, developed by transferring race resistance genes into the parent variety. There has been a release of IPCMB 19-3 in the Central Zone of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region.
Dr. Manish Roorkiwal, ICRISAT’s Senior Scientist in Molecular Breeding and Genomics, who worked on developing these varieties, said the variety of chickpea germplasm provides ample opportunities for improving the crop as the need evolves.
