Composite collection of Chickpea

Plant genetic resources (PGR) are the basic raw materials for future genetic progress and an insurance against unforeseen threats to agricultural production. An extensive characterization of PGR provides an opportunity to dissect structure, mine allelic variations, and identify diverse accessions for crop improvement. ICRISAT and ICARDA jointly developed a composite collection of 3000 accessions, which consists of 1956 accessions of the ICRISAT core collection, 709 accessions from ICARDA, 39 advanced lines/cultivars, 35 distinct morphological variants, 20 accessions from wild Cicer species (C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum), and 241 trait-specific (resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, early maturity, multi-seeded pods, double podded, large-seed, high seed protein, nodulation and responsive to high input conditions) accessions. Biologically, it represents 80% land races, 11% advanced lines/cultivars, 1% wild species, and 8% accessions of unknown origin. This composite collection has been molecularly profiled using 50 SSRs in high throughput assay (ABI3700)