A major gene for time of flowering in chickpea

A major gene for the number of days from sowing to appearance of the first flower (time of flowering) was identified in a cross between an extrashort duration chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) variety, ICCV 2, and a medium duration variety JG 62. The F2 population was advanced through the single-seed-descent method to develop random recombinant inbred lines (RILs). Time of flowering was recorded for the parents and 66 F6 RILs from this cross that were grown in a Vertisol field in the post-rainy season of 1996- 1997. Similarly the parents, F1 and F10 RILs were evaluated in 1997-1998. The F1 flowered along with JG 62. The time of flowering for the two sets of RILs showed bimodal distributions with nearly equal peaks. One peak corresponded with ICCV 2 and the other with JG 62. This suggests that a single gene controls the difference for the time of flowering between ICCV 2 and JG 62 and the allele carried by the latter parent is dominant. To our knowledge no gene has been identified for the time of flowering in chickpea. Therefore the allele carried by JG 62 is designated as Efl-1 and that by ICCV 2 as efl-1. The proposed genotype for ICCV 2 is efl-1 efl-1 and for JG 62 is Efl-1 Efl-1. The genotype efl-1 efl-1 reduces the time of flowering at ICRISAT by nearly 3 weeks. The significance of this gene for breeding for early maturity and genome mapping has been discussed.