Developing chickpea cultivars suitable to machine harvesting ABSTRACT: Machine harvesting of chickpea is likely to reduce production cost and make chickpea cultivation more profitable and ttractive to farmers. Most of the present day chickpea varieties are not suitable to machine harvesting due to bushy type plant and semi-spreding growth habit. Developing varieties with tall and semierect to erect growth habit with more than 25 cm ground clearance and lodging tolerance will make these amenable to combine harvesting. Such varieties will provide better solar light penetration inside crop canopy, which would reduce spread of foliar diseases (ascochyta blight and botrytis gray mould) and facilitate application of plant protection chemicals. These varieties will help in re-establishing chickpea cultivation in traditional areas of northern India and bringing more area as intercrop with autumn planted sugarcane. Recently released machine harvestable varietes NBeG 47 and GBM 2 are becoming very popular among farmers. Concerted efforts have led to development of mchine harvestable elite breeding lines with high yield and desired agronomic traits and grain quality for possible release. RESULTS In Southern and Central India, ICCV 08101, ICCV 07104, ICCV 03105, ICCV 05103, ICCV 07112, ICCV 13114, ICCV 13602 and ICCV 13646 exhibited higher grain yield than the best check JAKI 9218 at least 3 locations. Similarly, in Northern India, 6 entries performed well over at least 2 locations indicating promise for their possible release. Entry ICCV 13646 out yielded the best check at 6 out of 7 locations. DISCUSSION INTRODUCTION Machine harvesting of chickpea is one of the potential strategies to reduce cost of cultivation. Developing chickpea varieties with tall (>70 cm plant height) and erect/semi-erect growth habit, profuse primary branches of equal height (broom shape), more than 25 cm ground clearance (i.e. podding above 25 cm from the base), and non-lodging behaviour will be suitable for machine harvesting. Such varieties will ensure better solar light penetration inside crop canopy and help in minimizing incidence of foliar diseases besides ease in application of plant protection chemicals. Chickpea has sizable area (8-9 m ha) contributing to more than 45% to the total pulses production in India. India’s share in global chickpea area is more than 70%. Machine harvestable varieties will be rapidly adopted by the farmers because of the following advantages: Labor saving lower cost of production  higher returns Quick harvest minimum damage to the mature crop from shattering due to over drying, unfavorable weather (rain, wind, hailstorm) and other (theft, grazing) factors  more profit. Reduce drudgery (hardship, back pain, skin problems due to acid on plants) on farm women. Better sun light penetration in plant canopy  reduction in foliar diseases. Effective spray of pesticides in plant canopy  better management of insect pests like pod borer. Machine harvesting of chickpea would increase farmers’ income and make chickpea cultivation more attractive to farmers leading in increase in chickpea area. Entry 1st pod height (cm) Branch angle (degree) Yield (kg ha-1) Locations ICCV 13617 50.0 77 2722 PAU IPC 2012-253 45.6 67 2691 IIPR ICCV 13622 44.0 68 2571 IIPR, PAU ICCV 13645 48.8 71 2366 ICCV 13646 35.3 64 2304 IIPR, PAU, IARI ICCV 13602 41.0 2004 ICCV 08101 34.6 66 1784 IIPR, IARI HC 5 (check) 40.9 1651 OBJECTIVES Development of chickpea varieties for their amenability to machine harvesting to reduce cost of cultivation. Tailoring cultivars to ensure more returns to the farmers and bring additional area as intercrop with autumn planted sugarcane. Considering demand of chickpea varieties for their amenability to mechanical harvesting, systematic breeding programs were initiated at several locations including ICRISAT and ICAR-IIPR during the past decade. Under a project funded by the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India, large number of breeding lines were evaluated at 7 locations during 2013-15. Selected breeding lines from different centres were again evaluated in northern India (28 entries + 2 checks) and in central and southern India (27 entries + 3 checks) during 2015-16 in replicated yield trials. The major traits considered besides grain yields were ground clearance (height of first pod >25 cm), plant height (>60 cm crop height) and erect to semi-erect (>600branch angle) growth habit and lodging toleance. MATERIALS AND METHODS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Department of Agriculture and Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India, for financial support. REFERENCES Chaturvedi SK. Singh NP, Mishra N, Gaur PM and Varshney RK. 2016. Tailoring Chickpea Varieties for Amenability to Machine Harvesting. Presented at Joint Pan-African Grain Legume and World Cowpea Conference, 28 February to 4 March 2016, Livingstone, Zambia. Leveraging legumes to combat poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation Sushil K Chaturvedi1, Pooran M Gaur2, S Srinivasan2, Shailesh Tripathi3, Sarvjeet Singh4, V. Jayalakshmi5, AG Vijaykumar6, Md. Yashin7, Neelu Mishra1 and Narendra P Singh1 1ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, India; 2International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics, Patancheru; 3ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi; 4Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India; 5Agriculture Research Station, Nandyal; 6Aricutlure Research Station, Bijapur,; 7RAK College of Agriculture, Sehore, India