A large set of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasm accessions including mini core were evaluated for resistance to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceri and trait specific sources have been identified at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India. The identified subset contains list of 224 fusarium wilt resistant accessions available at ICRISAT, Genebank, which can be utilized for the development of elite chickpea cultivars.

Chickpea is an important pulse crop in over 45 countries of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. It is used as an important source of protein in human nutrition and cattle feed, and also to improve soil fertility by biological N2 fixation. Fusarium wilt (FW), caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp ciceri, is the most important root disease of chickpea in the semi-arid tropics (SAT), where the chickpea growing season is dry and warm. It is both seed and soil borne fungus and can survive in soil, even in the absence of its host, for six years. The disease occurs at seedling as well as at flowering and pod forming stage and reduces the yield significantly.