In the first year of the trial, 100 accessions each of chickpeas and grass peas will be cultivated in small plots at the University of Hohenheim and at project partners, the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) and the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF). These accessions will be evaluated according to agronomic criteria. In addition, their suitability for intercropping and weed suppression strategies will be tested in model cropping systems. To test for practical characteristics, on-farm experiments will take place at partner farms throughout the entire project duration.
In the second year of the trial, approximately 30 of the initial 100 chickpea and grass pea accessions will be selected for repeated cultivation and testing at the three sites. Experiments on drought and heat tolerance will be conducted at ZALF. At the University of Hohenheim, additional pot experiments will be performed to inoculate different strains of chickpea with various inoculants and develop methods for analyzing their contents.
The best accessions will be grown and evaluated again in the third year of the trial, so that by the end of the project, 10 to 15 genotypes suitable for domestic cultivation will be available for breeding and further propagation for each crop.