Management of Fungal Diseases of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) through Plant Growth Promoting Actinobacteria and Their Secondary Metabolites

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crop and ranks third in overall production after bean and pea on a world basis. It is grown in 33 countries over an area of about 11.5 million hectares (Bidyarani et al. 2016). Chickpea is mainly used as food because of its high protein (12−31%) and carbohydrate (52−71%) contents (Mergaand Haji 2019). Global yields of chickpea (968 kg ha−1) have been stagnant for the past five decades in spite of using various conventional and molecular breeding approaches and extensive use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides (FAOSTAT 2014). Productivity of chickpea may be considerably improved if the adverse effects of biotic stresses (such as Ascochyta blight, dry root rot, Fusarium wilt, collar rot, and Botrytis gray mold) are addressed. Management of fungal diseases of chickpea is difficult, as no single control measure is fully effective. Some of the control measures such as advanced sowing date, solarization of soil, use of pathogen-free seed and fungicide-treated seed are usually employed to control the diseases, but with limited success. The use of resistant cultivar is the most efficient control measure but the effectiveness of disease resistance is restricted by the occurrence of several races of the pathogen. Hence, there is a need to use biological options to manage plant pathogens.