A chickpea simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker reference kit has been developed based on the genotyping of the global chickpea composite collection (3,000 accessions) with 35 SSR markers. The kit consists of three pools of chickpea accessions along with supporting documentation on the SSR markers, polymerase chain reaction and detection conditions, and the expected allele sizes for each of the 35 SSR loci. These markers were selected based on quality criteria, genome coverage and locus-specific information content. Other important SSR selection criteria were quality of amplification products, locus complexity, polymorphism information content and well-dispersed location on a chickpea genetic map. The developed SSR kit has a wide range of applications, especially for genetic diversity studies in chickpea. Using the markers and reference accessions in the kit, scientists in other laboratories will be able to compare the genotypic data that they obtain for their germplasm with that obtained using the global composite collection.

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is participating in a large-scale programme, Subprogram 1 of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Generation Challenge Program, that aims to explore the genetic diversity of the global germplasm collections held by the CGIAR research centres. This project will identify a ‘composite collection’ of germplasm for individual crops, representing the range of diversity of each crop species and its wild relatives, and characterize each composite set using anonymous molecular markers, mainly simple sequence repeats (SSRs). The overall goal of this project is to study diversity across given genera and identify genes for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses that can be used in crop improvement programmes. ICARDA was responsible for creating the composite collection for lentil. ICARDA has the global mandate for lentil and houses the largest global collection of this crop with 10,509 accessions. From this collection, a global composite collection of 1000 lentil accessions was established with the aim to represent genetic diversity and the agro-climatological range of lentil. Accessions for the composite collection were compiled from landraces, wild relatives, and elite germplasm and cultivars. The methodology presented here combined classical hierarchical cluster analyses using agronomic traits and two-step cluster analyses using agro-climatological data linked to the geographical coordinates of the accessions' collection sites. Genotyping for 30 SSR loci will be carried out for all 1000 accessions. Plants grown for DNA analysis will be harvested and progeny will be evaluated under field conditions at ICARDA.