Evaluation and Screening of Promising Drought Tolerant Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes Based on Physiological and Biochemical Attributes Under Drought Conditions
Evaluation and Screening of Promising Drought Tolerant Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes Based on Physiological and Biochemical Attributes Under Drought Conditions
Muhammad Jan1*, Tanveer ul Haq2, Hina Sattar3, Madiha Butt4, Abdul Khaliq5, Muhammad Arif6 and Abdul Rauf7
ABSTRACT
Extreme climatic conditions like heat waves, dry spell, sustained drought and precipitation adversely reducing the crop productivity and these are considered as an alarming issue for the crop production in rainfed areas. Chick pea is deemed to be regarded as a drought sensitive crop. The low water and fertilizer demand and its ability to grow on marginal land is an excellent choice for the farming community. The field trial was conducted with the aspect to screen out the drought-tolerant variety of chick pea keeping in view the physiological and biochemical attributes under drought conditions. Drought stress adversely reduced the vegetative growth in term of primary branches, secondary branches and pod yield. Based on biochemical, morphological and physiological parameters a significant difference was observed among the genotypes. Out of twenty-five genotypes, three chick pea genotypes i-e chick pea genotypes GGP1260, GGP1426 and PB01 shown the best drought tolerance efficiency (83.78, 84.21 and 81.57%), harvest index (83.23, 84.06, and 81.14%) and minimum reduction in pod yield (16.21, 15.78 and 18.42%) under rainfed controlled conditions. Under rainfed condition the activity of all enzymes increased among all genotypes. The chick pea genotypes, GGP-1260, PGP-1426 and PB-1 were observed as drought-tolerant ones on the basis of biochemical, morphological and physiological parameters and these can be recommended for rain-fed areas crop selection.
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