Video: Breeding must keep pace with emerging diseases in pulses

By Dr Mamta Sharma, Senior Scientist – Legumes Pathology, Grain Legumes, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India.

As climate variabilities increase, this has led to a change in the number and types of diseases that afflict pulses. To overcome the onslaught of diseases such as dry root rot in chickpea and phytophthora blight in pigeonpea, it is important to start breeding new varieties. Other gaps such as developing forecast models and ensuring the transfer of technology to poor farmers must also be filled.

This video is one in a series created by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) for the International Year of Pulses. Pulses including pigeonpeas and chickpeas are some of the mandate crops of ICRISAT. Research focus is on (a) improved grain quality, nutritional traits, food safety, nitrogen fixing properties, hybrids, and (b) drought tolerance and adaptation to diverse dryland agroecosystems and to differing rotations with cereal crops. Breeding is enhanced with modern genomic and molecular tools, precise phenotyping and crop simulation modeling. ICRISAT works along the whole value chain of pulses in an integrated manner to create a win-win situation for the farmer, consumer and the planet.

The views expressed here belong to the speaker and do not necessarily represent FAO’s views, positions, strategies or opinions.