Determination of Photoperiod-Sensitive Phase in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.).

Ketema Daba,Bunyamin Tar'An,Thomas D Warkentin,Rosalind Bueckert,Christopher D Todd

doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.00478

Abstract

Photoperiod is one of the major environmental factors determining time to flower initiation and first flower appearance in plants. In chickpea, photoperiod sensitivity, expressed as delayed to flower under short days (SD) as compared to long days (LD), may change with the growth stage of the crop. Photoperiod-sensitive and -insensitive phases were identified by experiments in which individual plants were reciprocally transferred in a time series from LD to SD and vice versa in growth chambers. Eight chickpea accessions with differing degrees of photoperiod sensitivity were grown in two separate chambers, one of which was adjusted to LD (16 h light/8 h dark) and the other adjusted to SD (10 h light/14 h dark), with temperatures of 22/16°C (12 h light/12 h dark) in both chambers. The accessions included day-neutral (ICCV 96029 and FLIP 98-142C), intermediate (ICC 15294, ICC 8621, ILC 1687, and ICC 8855), and photoperiod-sensitive (CDC Corinne and CDC Frontier) responses. Control plants were grown continuously under the respective photoperiods. Reciprocal transfers of plants between the SD and LD photoperiod treatments were made at seven time points after sowing, customized for each accession based on previous data. Photoperiod sensitivity was detected in intermediate and photoperiod-sensitive accessions. For the day-neutral accession, ICCV 96029, there was no significant difference in the number of days to flowering of the plants grown under SD and LD as well as subsequent transfers. In photoperiod-sensitive accessions, three different phenological phases were identified: a photoperiod-insensitive pre-inductive phase, a photoperiod-sensitive inductive phase, and a photoperiod-insensitive post-inductive phase. The photoperiod-sensitive phase extends after flower initiation to full flower development. Results from this research will help to develop cultivars with shorter pre-inductive photoperiod-insensitive and photoperiod-sensitive phases to fit to regions with short growing seasons.

Highlights

In western Canada, the short crop growing season available for chickpea (110–120 days) often coincides with end-of-season frost resulting in severe losses in grain yield and quality (Warkentin et al, 2003)
Eight diverse chickpea accessions namely: ICCV 96029 (S1), FLIP 98-142C (S2), ICC 15294 (I1), ICC 8621 (I2), ILC 1687 (I3), and ICC 8855 (I4), CDC Corinne (S1), and CDC Frontier (S2) collected from the gene banks of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), together with cultivars developed at the Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan were used in this research (Table 1)
Delay in flowering of the four accessions with intermediate response to photoperiod [ICC 15294 (I1), ICC 8621 (I2), ILC1867 (I3), and ICC 8855 (I4)] ranged from 17 to 42 days under short days (SD) compared to long days (LD)

Summary

Introduction

In western Canada, the short crop growing season available for chickpea (110–120 days) often coincides with end-of-season frost resulting in severe losses in grain yield and quality (Warkentin et al, 2003). All flowering plants undergo several developmental transitions during their life cycle which can be divided into three major physiological developmental phases: a vegetative phase, from emergence to flower initiation, the reproductive phase, from floral initiation to anthesis, and physiological maturity, from anthesis to seed filling (Ritchie, 1991; Ritchie et al, 1998). The transition from the vegetative to reproductive phase is a major developmental switch in the plant’s life cycle (Levy and Dean, 1998). This transition is crucial for survival because plants normally time the onset of flowering to suitable environmental conditions. Understanding the photoperiodsensitive phase of a photoperiodic plant would allow better crop management strategy to either promote early flowering to reduce crop duration time, or to intentionally delay flowering (Warner, 2009)

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