Abstract
Six kabuli chickpea genotypes (Cicer Arietinum L.) were evaluated under three water levelss at the open field during February -June 2018. This study was conducted to evaluate the chickpea water stress, on soil water dynamic, agromorphological traits, and water use efficiency to estimate variability levels between varieties and to identify the varieties of chickpea adaptable on semi-arid bioclimatic stage. For this purpose, a trial was conducted at the Higher Agronomic Institute of Chott Mariem (Tunisia). There is no effect of the treatment on the height, biological yield, and branching number. The seeds weigh, PCG, seed yield, harvest index, and water use efficiency relative to seed have the highest value in T1 (100% of ETc) when water use efficiency relative to biological yield, number of pods and of seeds recorded the highest values in T3 (50% of ETc). Univariate analysis showed highly significant differences between genotypes for many traits. Principal Component Analysis was performed for all traits and allowed to define two axes. The first one explains 49.30% of the variability of the total trait and was formed by genotypes ‘Beja’, ‘Nayer’ and’ ‘Rebha’. Genotypes forming this axe are closely related to each other according to their common morphological characters like height (r=0.88), biological yield (r=0.93), bringing the number (r=0.53), seed yield (r=0.81), WUE relative to seed (r=0.75), harvest index (r=0.65) and WUE relative to biological yield (r=0.94). The second clustered genotypes ‘Bochra’ and ‘Nour’. This second axe (27.99%) is represented by pods number (r=0.87), seed number (r=0.87) and PCG (r=0.78).
Highlights
The sustainability of agricultural production depends on conservation and appropriate use and management of water resources
The main objectives of this study were assessing the best chickpea genotypes which adapt to the central of Tunisia climatic conditions by identifying agronomic attributes whose selection would lead to improvement in chickpea seed yield
To increase the production of chickpeas and mitigate the national limited water resources, it would be necessary to resort to a second alternative, which consists of extending the cultivation of this species to areas of semi-arid Tunisia
Summary
The sustainability of agricultural production depends on conservation and appropriate use and management of water resources. In Tunisia, chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), Kabuli genotypes, is the second pulse crop after fababean It is grown, in spring rainfed conditions (Wery, 1990), in humid and sub-humid regions, mainly at Bizerte, Mateur, Beja, Jendouba, and Nabeul areas (Ben Mbarek and al., 2011). The chickpea suffers from many difficulties, apart from the environmental conditions and the lack of mastery of cultivation techniques which are not insignificant causes of the weakness of production; it seems that the major problem remains that of an abiotic factor such as the deficiency in phosphorus, salinity, and drought The latter is a major factor, which in the event of low availability, constrains the production of legume crops. Two types of droughts affect the chickpea crop in Tunisia, a spring caused by the breakdown of rainfall and a terminal one occurs at the end of the crop’s growth cycle due to a lack of rainfall and drying out of water reserves in soil (Wery et al, 1994)
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