Aggressiveness of eight Didymella rabiei isolates from domesticated and wild chickpea native to Turkey and Israel, a case study

Hilal Ozkilinc, Omer Frenkel, Dani Shtienberg*, Shahal Abbo, Amir Sherman, Abdullah Kahraman, Canan Can

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ascochyta blight, caused by Didymella rabiei, affects both domesticated chickpea and its congeneric wild relatives. The aim of this study was to compare the aggressiveness of D. rabiei isolates from wild and domesticated Cicer spp. in Turkey and Israel on wild and domesticated hosts from both countries. A total of eight isolates of D. rabiei sampled from C. pinnatifidum, C. judaicum and C. arietinum in Turkey and Israel was tested on two domesticated chickpea cultivars and two wild Cicer accessions from Turkey and Israel. Using cross-inoculation experiments, we compared pathogen aggressiveness across the different pathogen and host origin combinations. Two measures of aggressiveness were used, incubation period and relative area under the disease progress curve. The eight tested isolates infected all of the host plants, but were more aggressive on their original hosts with one exception; Turkish domesticated isolates were less aggressive on their domesticated host in comparison to the aggressiveness of Israeli domesticated isolates on Turkish domesticated chickpea. C. judaicum plants were highly resistant against all of the isolates from different origins except for their own isolates. Regardless of the country of origin, the wild isolates were highly aggressive on domesticated chickpea while the domesticated isolates were less aggressive on the wild hosts compared with the wild isolates. These results suggest that the aggressiveness pattern of D. rabiei on different hosts could have been shaped by adaptation to the distinct ecological niches of wild vs. domesticated chickpea.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)529-537
Number of pages9
JournalEuropean Journal of Plant Pathology
Volume131
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2011

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Profs. Avigdor Cahaner and Yonathan Elkind (Institute of Plant Science, Hebrew University, Rehovot, Israel) for their valuable statistical advice and Dr. Tobin Peever (Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman, USA) for his valuable comments. We would like to thank Mr. Haim Vintal for technical assistance. The work of Dr. H. Ozkilinc in Drs. Sherman and Shtienberg laboratories was made possible by a research scholarship granted to H. Ozkilinc by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Keywords

  • Ascochyta blight
  • Disease severity
  • Host adaptation
  • Incubation period
  • Wild Cicer

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