Chickpea improvement programme

Chickpea is an important crop grown in winter in Pakistan. Creation of genetic variability and performance of chickpea mutants in micro yield trials at Nuclear Institute of food and Agriculture (NIFA) Fasilabad, Pakistan are discussed. The mutant line gave significantly highest number of pods, grains per plant, harvest index and yield. The result revealed significant difference among different varieties for the character studies of chickpea and testing of mutants against gram blight in disease screening nurseries have been discussed. (A.B.)