USDA strengthens Embrapa’s chickpea gene bank

The Active Germplasm Bank (BAG) of chickpeas at Embrapa Hortaliças now has a significant reinforcement represented by the arrival of 500 accessions of the legume, from the United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), involving the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). 

The negotiations that began in 2019 and resulted in the recent delivery of accessions in March are aligned with the project approved in the Embrapa Management System (SEG) that deals with Active Germplasm Banks of Oilseeds, Fibers and Legumes. Researcher Warley Nascimento, coordinator of the genetic improvement work of pulses at Embrapa Vegetables, is responsible for the project that has chickpeas as one of its main assets, based on the collection of genetic resources with added value of the legume.

According to him, the reinforcement provided by the new chickpea accessions should be reflected in the expansion and organization of the legume's genetic resource collections. The proposal, explains Nascimento, is to gather information on the origin, introduction, multiplication, identification, characterization and availability of these accessions, after due registration on the Alelo Platform.

“To meet current and future demands, germplasm repositories with broad genetic variability and added value of genes and products of their expression are needed to be made available for scientific and technological research,” he comments.

Production

The characterization and evaluation of the collection will be carried out based on morphological and agronomic descriptors, that is, with the identification of botanical characteristics – productivity, grain size and color, precocity and height, among others – enabling the identification of accession groups with characteristics of scientific and technological interest. “The general objective of this work is to enrich, conserve, characterize, document, disseminate and make available the accessions of this legume with a view to valuing and using genetic resources and their strategic availability for Brazil”, summarizes the researcher.

The genetic resource exchange process was led by analyst Danielle Biscaia, who works in the research and technology transfer area at Embrapa Hortaliças. According to her, several Embrapa teams were involved in different stages: “In addition to Embrapa Hortaliças, we had the participation of the Technical Coordination of the Germplasm Curation System (CTSC), the Germplasm Exchange Center (NIG), the Plant Germplasm Quarantine Station Management Center (NEQGV) and the Secretariat of Foreign Trade (Secex)”.

plant-based

A conservation unit of genetic material for immediate use or with potential for future use, the Active Plant Germplasm Bank is defined as a set of accessions preserved in the field, screened, in the form of seeds in cold chambers, using tissue culture techniques from which the materials for exchange and research originate.