Resistance to Plant-Parasitic Nematodes in Chickpea: Current Status and Future Perspectives.

Plant-parasitic nematodes constrain chickpea () production, with annual yield losses estimated to be 14% of total global production. Nematode species causing significant economic damage in chickpea include root-knot nematodes (, , and ), cyst nematode (, and root-lesion nematode (). Reduced functionality of roots from nematode infestation leads to water stress and nutrient deficiency, which in turn lead to poor plant growth and reduced yield. Integration of resistant crops with appropriate agronomic practices is recognized as the safest and most practical, economic and effective control strategy for plant-parasitic nematodes. However, breeding for resistance to plant-parasitic nematodes has numerous challenges that originate from the narrow genetic diversity of the cultigen. While levels of resistance to , and have been identified in wild species that are superior to resistance levels in the cultigen, barriers to interspecific hybridization restrict the use of these crop wild relatives, as sources of nematode resistance. Wild species of the primary genepool, and , are the only species that have been used to introgress resistance genes into the cultigen. The availability of genomic resources, including genome sequence and re-sequence information, the chickpea reference set and mini-core collections, and new wild collections, provide unprecedented opportunities for chickpea improvement. This review surveys progress in the identification of novel genetic sources of nematode resistance in international germplasm collections and recommends genome-assisted breeding strategies to accelerate introgression of nematode resistance into elite chickpea cultivars.