Lentils

A project between ICARDA, Washington State University and USDA/ARS, called Genetics and Breeding of Food Legumes was started in the mid-1980s. It looked at exploitation of existing genetic resources of food legumes and gene mapping of economic traits to allow marker-assisted selection in chickpea and lentil. From this project came the lentil variety ‘Crimson’, derived from Egyptian germplasm supplied by ICARDA to USDA and Washington State University.
     ICARDA collaborates with Washington State University on Inheritance and mapping of winter-hardiness genes in lentil for use in marker-assisted selection, a project on winter-lentil hardiness, to improve lentil production in the highlands of West Asia. The yield from winter lentils has been shown to be 50% higher than current spring-sown varieties at elevations of 850–1300 meters. In the US Pacific North West, winter sowing would assist in preventing soil erosion. The project is mapping the genes that control the winter-hardiness trait and assessing the value of marker-assisted selection. A further project is mapping the economic genes of lentil.