Genetic diversity analysis of advanced chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes in Ethiopia for identification of high-yielding and novel Fusarium wilt resistance sources

Chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most important food legumes in the world. However, Fusarium wilt is one of the major yield limiting factors in chickpea. Breeding for host plant resistance is the most cost-efficient and eco-friendly strategy to control the disease. The deployment of resistant varieties has not been extensively used due to lack of stable resistance source with desirable yield and yield-related morphological traits in cultivated chickpea with a narrow genetic base for traits’ improvement. Therefore, creating significant genetic diversity is a fundamental step to develop Fusarium wilt-resistant varieties. In this study, 47 advanced recombinant inbred lines derived from multi-parent intraspecific crosses and three checks were assessed for Fusarium wilt resistance and major yield-related morphological traits for two consecutive years. Analysis of variance showed the presence of significant difference ( P < 0.05) among test genotypes for major yield-related morphological traits. Consistently, multivariate analyses showed high genetic diversity between test genotypes. Cluster analysis grouped test genotypes into four distinct clusters. The first two principal coordinates with eigenvalues greater than one accounted for 93.94% of the total variation suggesting high genetic diversity between test genotypes. Based on these, we identified 20 high-yielding and novel Fusarium wilt-resistant genotypes with mean wilt incidence of 3.83%. Therefore, these genotypes can be utilized in any chickpea breeding program as a novel Fusarium wilt resistance sources to develop wilt-resistant varieties with high yield and yield-related morphological traits.