Editing Chickpea (section)

==History==

The chickpea was originally domesticated along with [[wheat]], [[barley]], [[peas]], and [[lentils]] during the [[First Agricultural Revolution]] about 10,000 years ago.<ref name="Gupta2017"/>  The closest evolutionary relative to chickpeas is ''Cicer reticulatum'', a plant native to a relatively small area in the Southeastern part of modern-day [[Turkey]] and nearby areas in modern-day [[Syria]].<ref name="Mehmetoglu2023"/><ref name="Ahmad2005"/>{{rp|231}}  Initially, ancient hunter-gatherer cultures harvested wild plants that they encountered, but evidence of the cultivation of some domestic food crops from 7500 BCE and possibly earlier have been documented.<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|1}}

Archaeological sites in modern [[Syria]], such as [[Idlib|Tell El-Kerkh]] and [[Tell Abu Hureyra]], have revealed remnant traces of peas, lentils, and [[fava beans]], along with grain legumes including chickpeas, [[Vicia ervilia|bitter vetch]], and [[Lathyrus sativus|grass peas]] from the 8th millenium BCE.<ref name="Mikic2011a"/><ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|1}}  Samples from Tell El-Kerkh have been analyzed, revealing traces of both the cultivated ''C. arietinum'' and the wild ''C. reticulatum''.<!--<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|1}}--> Additional discoveries have been made at [[Çayönü]] in Turkey dating from between 7500 and 6800 BCE, and at [[Hacilar]] in Turkey that date from 5450 BCE.<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|1}}  

Cultivation of domesticated chickpea is well documented from 3300 BCE onwards in [[Egypt]] and the [[Middle East]].<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|1-2}}  During the [[Neolithic]] Era, chickpea cultivation spread to the west and was established in present-day [[Greece]] by the late Neolithic Era.<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|2}}  During the [[Bronze Age]], chickpea cultivation spread to Crete and as far as upper Egypt, with specimens from 1400 BCE found at [[Deir el-Medina]].<!--<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|2-4}}--> At the same time, it spread to the east, and chickpeas from 1900 BCE were found at [[Tell Bazmusian]].  In the [[Indian subcontinent]], archaeological evidence of chickpea cultivation at [[Lal Quila]], [[Sanghol]], [[Inamgaon]], [[Nevasa]], [[Hulas]], Senuwar, and [[Daimabad]] date from between 1750 and 1500 BCE.<!--<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|2-4}}-->  By the [[Iron Age]], cultivation had spread as far south as [[Lalibela]] in [[Ethiopia]].<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|2-4}}  The Spanish and Portuguese introduced chickpea cultivation to the [[New World]] in the 16th century.<ref name="Redden2007"/>{{rp|5}}

The process of domestication involved the [[selective breeding]] of plants that produced large, palatable seeds that do not require a dormancy period, plants that have seeds that are easy to separate from the [[Glossary of plant morphology#Fruit types|pods]], plants with a predictable ripening period to allow a whole field to ripen at once, and plants with desirable physical forms.<ref name="Ahmad2005"/>{{rp|231}}  This selective breeding produced several different varieties of chickpeas. In Greece, [[Theophrastus]] wrote "Chickpeas{{nbsp}}... differ in size, color, taste, and shape; there are the varieties called 'rams' and 'vetch-like' chickpeas, and the intermediate forms" in ''[[Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus)|Historia Plantarum]]'', written between 350 and 287 BCE.<ref name="Theophrastus2"/>{{rp|173}}   

One key selection factor in the domestication of chickpeas was the selection of a spring-sown cropping season.  The evolutionary relatives of ''Cicer arietinum'' grow during the Winter and are harvested in the Spring.<ref name="Gupta2017"/>  In the Near East, more than 80 percent of annual precipitation occurs between the months of December and February, while the long summers are hot and dry.<ref name="Abbo2003"/>{{rp|38}}  Growing in the damp Winter months made the crops vulnerable to Ascochyta blight caused by ''[[Didymella rabiei]]'', resulting in crop failures.<ref name="Gupta2017"/>  Recorded evidence shows that by the [[Hellenistic period]] and the time of the [[Roman Empire]], summer cropping of chickpeas was being practiced.<ref name="Abbo2003"/>{{rp|38}}

===Genome sequencing===

[[Whole genome sequencing|Sequencing of the genome]] has been completed for 90 chickpea genotypes, including several wild species.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.icrisat.org/newsroom/news-releases/icrisat-pr-2013-media2.htm |publisher=International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics |title=Global research team decodes genome sequence of 90 chickpea lines|date=2013 |access-date=9 October 2015 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304133909/http://www.icrisat.org/newsroom/news-releases/icrisat-pr-2013-media2.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> A collaboration of 20 research organizations, led by the [[International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics]] (ICRISAT),  sequenced CDC Frontier, a ''kabuli'' chickpea variety, and identified more than 28,000 genes and several million genetic markers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Varshney|first1=Rajeev K|last2=Song |first2=Chi |last3=Saxena |first3=Rachit K. |last4=Azam |first4=Sarwar |last5=Yu |first5=Sheng |last6=Sharpe |first6=Andrew G. |last7=Cannon |first7=Steven |last8=Baek |first8=Jongmin |last9=Rosen |first9=Benjamin D. |date=2013-01-27 |title=Draft genome sequence of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) provides a resource for trait improvement |journal=Nature Biotechnology |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=240–246 |doi=10.1038/nbt.2491 |pmid=23354103 |s2cid=6649873 |url=https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/98941191/Draft_genome_sequence_of_chickpea_Cicer_arietinum_provides_a_resource_for_trait_improvement.pdf|doi-access=free}}</ref>