Studies on Morpho Physiological and Biochemical Basis of Drought Tolerance in Chickpea Cicer arietinum L Genotypes

Abstract

Drought exerts the most crucial role in terms of growth inhibition and yield loss newlinesince, germination and seedling growth is most critical stage that negatively affected by newlinedrought. The experiment was conducted in MARS, UAS, Dharwad during rabi 2021 to newlinestudy the stress response of twenty seven chickpea genotypes under moisture stress newlineconditions. Seeds were sown in germination paper and drought stress was induced by newlinePEG-6000 at different stress levels viz., 5% (-0.05 MPa), 10 % (-0.148 MPa), 15% newline(-0.295 MPa) and 20% (-0.491 MPa) along with untreated control. Seed germination and newlineseedling growth parameters were recorded. The results revealed that, the highest newlinegermination percentage was observed in control and zero germination was observed in newlinebeyond 20% PEG treatment. Among genotypes, highest germination percentage was newlinerecorded in DIBG 205 (94.50%) in control, which also showed higher germination in all newlinelevel of stress applied compared to other genotypes. Root length was correlated to stress newlinetolerance and highest root length was observed at 10 % PEG treatment and decreased newlinewith increase in PEG concentration. ICCV 4958 (18.48 cm) had recorded highest root newlinelength at 10% PEG. Based on seedling vigour index I and seedling vigour index II, 15 newlinechickpea genotypes were further evaluated in field condition during rabi 2021-22 and newline2022-23 under rainfed and need based irrigations were given during flowering and pod newlinedevelopment stage. The genotypes were screened for various morphological, newlinephenological, physiological, biochemical and yield traits. Among genotypes, the newlinemaximum plant height was recorded in DBGV 206 (48.56 cm) under rainfed condition newlineand more number of branches per plant were recorded in A-1 (15.17) at 90 DAS under newlinestress condition. The genotypes A-1, ICCV 4958 and SA-1 had shown early maturity to newlineescape the terminal drought stress. Among the genotypes ICCV 4958 had bagged newlinemaximum yield (17.67 q ha-1) followed by DIBG 205 (16.93 q ha-1). These genotypes had also accumulated higher amount of osmolytes like proline