AN ASSESSMENT OF GENETIC VARIABILITY IN A CICER ARIETINUM L. COLLECTION.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a grain legume widely cultivated in the warm temperate and semi-arid regions for its high nutritional value, given the 15-25% high quality protein seed content. In Italy, about 3,500 hectares are cultivated with chickpea, mainly in southern and island regions. We predisposed a chickpea germplasm collection consisting in 50 different south Italian landraces and other 100 different feral forms and landraces originated from different world areas. In order to assess the genetic variability on the whole collection, we used a set of microsatellites markers (SSR) specific for chickpea. A quite large polymorphism of SSR in the different genotypes was observed and this result, will be further exploited to study the genetic distance among genotypes. At the same time, to evaluate the response to drought stress of the whole collection, an assay on seedlings was set up in growth chamber, treating the plants with different concentrations of NaCl and PEG solutions. These experiments allowed to identify two accession (red-coloured seeds) showing a high degree of tolerance to the experimental conditions used. Moreover, a trial was also conducted for resistance to the seed-beetle Callosobruchus maculatus (Fabr.) that causes considerable economic losses worldwide. A preliminary laboratory bioassay was conducted on eighteen genotypes, that were evaluated by measuring the percentage damage to seeds, founding one black seed genotype (CA-100) that exhibited a complete resistance. This promising genotype will be studied at molecular level to highlight the bases of the resistance in this interaction plant-insect, and it will be incorporated in future breeding programme as bruchid resistance in chickpea lines.