Current Status of Mapping Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) for Different Traits and Marker Assisted Breeding in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) – A Review

Chickpea is one of the most important pulse crops having estimated genome size of 738 Mb. The crop is affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses causing significant yield reduction. During the recent past, some biotic stresses like fusarium wilt, ascochyta blight, botrytis grey mould and abiotic stresses like drought, heat and salinity were found to reduce the productivity, thereafter, these demands for development of high yielding early maturing chickpea varieties with resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Due to the advent of molecular techniques and availability of highly polymorphic and co-dominant microsatellite and other molecular markers, development of genetic maps for chickpea has progressed significantly. Molecular markers are now considered better than morphological and physiological characters for being stable, unaffected by environmental influences and easily detectable irrespective of their growth and development stages. The mapping of genes / QTLs for various traits like flowering time, yield and yield related traits, resistance to fusarium wilt, ascochyta blight, BGM, drought, salinity, heat may be useful in developing improved varieties of chickpea besides deeper understanding of genetics underlying the inheritance of the characters. The knowledge on mapped genes / QTLs for various traits of interest could help in integration of genomics-assisted breeding through various approaches like Marker Assisted Back Crossing, introgression of superior alleles from wild species through Advanced Backcross QTL, Marker Assisted Recurrent Selection and Genome Wide Selection for improving chickpea.