Morpho-physiological and biochemical alternation responses in different chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes under two constructing water regimes

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to assess the differential morpho-physiological response to stimulated water deficit and to determine the relationship between some of these morphological and physiological traits and yield components of ten chickpea genotypes grown in field under irrigated and rain-fed conditions. Variance analysis of the data showed that the environment was a significant source of variation for all measured characters and genotypes showed significant differences for all measured traits in both environments. In well-watered condition, the highest correlation was belonged to number of seeds per plant and number of pods per plant (P<0.01). The seed yield had highly significant positive correlation with number of seeds per plant (P<0.01) and number of pods per plant (P<0.01). Also, seed yield showed positive significant (P<0.05) correlation with RWC, Na+ and K+ uptake. In water deficit condition high significant positive correlation were observed between grain yields with physiological traits, while in irrigated environment the correlation between grain yields with proline accumulation was not significant. In general, the results suggested that a chickpea cultivar, for increased yield under irrigated conditions, should have maximum number of seeds and pods per plant and under stress conditions should have maximum number of seeds and pods per plant and also keep the high level of RWC, chlorophyll and proline content in their leaves. Thus, identifying these traits as selection criteria in chickpea breeding program may be useful for breeders to introduce suitable drought resistant chickpea cultivars for arid regions.