SCREENING AND EVALUATION OF CICER ARIETINUM GENOTYPES AGAINST FUSARIUM WILT UNDER SICK FIELD AND ARTIFICIAL CONDITIONSHIVANI YADAV1 AND SANJEEV KUMARAbstract Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceris is one of the highly destructive disease causes upto 90% yield losses depending on unfavorable environmental condition. In the present study, 21 chickpea genotypes were collected from Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute (RARI), Durgapur (Raj.), India and screened by artificial inoculation, at research area of Plant Pathology, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University. In an attempt for the same, in the present study selected three strains of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri from culture collection and reaction of twenty one chickpea genotypes against Fusarium wilt were analyzed. Study suggested significant variations in their disease reaction between pot culture and field condition. Disease observations were also recorded at different vegetative (early stage) and reproductive stage (late stage). A considerable variation among the genotypes for disease reaction was observed at both the stages. Under pot culture, reaction of genotypes against the Fusarium wilt varied from highly resistant to highly susceptible whereas in the field conditions, reaction of genotypes varied from highly resistant to moderately resistant, except one (CSJK -54 was tolerant to local strain of IIPR, Kanpur). Based on result obtained in pot culture and sick field 02 genotypes RSJ-902 and RSJ-991 showed high resistance to all the 03 strains of Fusarium whereas, under sick field 02 genotypes (<10% wilting) showed resistance to all three strains. This screening will further help to utilize the elite genotypes in crop improvement programme. |