Icrisat-W Australia chickpea project to be completed by '09

The collaborative project between the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) and Western Australia for exploring disease-resistant and salinity-tolerant chickpea for Western Australia will be completed by 2009.

After exchanging the MoU documents with Alan Carpenter, the premier of Western Australia, here on Tuesday, Icrisat deputy director-general for research Dyno Keatinge said, "Chickpea cultivation in Western Australia has been adversely affected due to acute incidents of diseases such as Ascochyta blight and Botrytis gray mold. This resulted in a sharp decline in the area of cultivation and production "� from 3 lakh hectares in 1999 to 5,000 hectares today with an average productivity of 1.5 tonne per hectare. To tackle this, we are developing new disease-resistant chickpea varieties that are most suited for Western Australian conditions."

According to him, Icrisat has identified three breeding materials which are resistant to diseases.

"Field trials have been conducted in Punjab and in greenhouses at Icrisat. It is now passing through a quarantine system, and the project is expected to be completed by 2009. The Western Australia farmers would be able to get these new disease-resistant chickpea seeds in the next 3-4 years," he said. The project began in 2005.