Physiological and Yield Responses of Selected Mungbean Genotypes to Terminal Drought

Abstract

Extreme drought conditions have been a major limiting factor in legume production worldwide. The development of drought-resilient crops should help mitigate adverse effects of unfavorable environmental conditions such as drought; however, initial characterization is necessary to ensure that the germplasm has the essential genetic variation for drought tolerance. In this study, a field trial was conducted to characterize drought response and potential drought tolerance of 100 mungbean genotypes through the evaluation of several physiological parameters and seed yield. The genotypes were subjected to terminal drought stress before flowering (~ 30 d after planting), reducing soil moisture content (SMC) from 25.0–30.0% to 13.0–15.0% during treatment imposition. Significant differences were observed between mungbean genotypes for total chlorophyll content (Chl), total scavenging activity (SA), electrolyte leakage (EC), and chlorophyll fluorescence (Fv/Fm) during drought. Furthermore, by transforming each physiological parameter into principal components (PCs) via principal component analysis (PCA), five distinct clusters were generated. Based on their physiological response and seed yield, Clusters I and II were identified as potential drought susceptible group, Cluster III was moderately susceptible, and Clusters IV and V were identified as the potential drought-tolerant group. Correlation analysis and PCA also demonstrated the significant relationship among several key traits for drought tolerance such as chlorophyll content, electrolyte leakage, and antioxidant scavenging to chlorophyll fluorescence – suggesting the suitability of fluorescence parameter in mungbean mass screening for drought tolerance. Although weak correlation between physiological parameters to seed yield was present (0.3 <│r│< 0.5), correlations among each physiological parameter were moderately strong (0.5 <│r│< 0.7). The findings suggest that a physiological characterization during initial screening for drought tolerance was an effective approach in identifying possible sources of drought tolerance traits complementary with yield- related traits. The evaluation of chlorophyll fluorescence, scavenging activity, electrolyte leakage, and chlorophyll content was enough to differentiate and characterize the drought response of several mungbean genotypes and will be vital in the development of climate-resilient crops.