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Pak. J. Bot., 42(2): 1369-1378, 2010.

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GENOTYPING WITH RAPD MARKERS RESOLVES PATHOTYPE DIVERSITY IN THE ASCOCHYTA BLIGHT AND FUSARIUM WILT PATHOGENS

OF CHICKPEA IN PAKISTAN

FARHAT F. JAMIL^*, MUHAMMAD SARWAR¹, NIGHAT SARWAR¹, JUNAID A. KHAN¹, M. HAYAT ZAHID¹, SUMAIRA YOUSAF¹, HAFIZ M. IMRAN ARSHAD¹ AND IKRAM-UL-HAQ¹

Abstract: Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important legume in Pakistan and constitutes about 70% of the pulse crops. Unfortunately, this crop is badly affected by two diseases i.e., chickpea blight and wilt caused by the fungi Ascochyta rabiei and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris (FOC), respectively. Pathogenicity of A. rabiei and FOC isolates collected from different areas was conducted on a set of chickpea differentials sets. Isolates of the two pathogens showing different levels of virulence were selected for their DNA fingerprinting. RAPD analysis of 12 isolates of A. rabiei and 5 of FOC was performed using sixteen different 10-mer oligonucleotide primers. The dendrograms of A. rabiei and FOC produced from this data showed different levels of genetic relatedness and differences between isolates which were superimposed by their pathotyping data. A set of 7 genetically different and highly aggressive isolates of A. rabiei from different areas was selected for thorough screening of chickpea germplasm against blight for attaining durable resistance. Similarly, the dendrogram of FOC showed that all the five isolates were very different and those from Thal area were more aggressive. 

Department of Botany, G.C. University, Faisalabad,

¹Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), P.O. Box 128, Jhang Road, Faisalabad. Pakistan.