Response of growth and nitrogen fixation to pod elimination of three annual Medicago species submitted to drought and subsequent recovery

Abstract

This research examined the effect of pod elimination on growth and N2 fixation ability in three annual Medicago species during drought stress and subsequent recovery. This study was carried out as a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with four replications. The treatments included annual Medicago species, presence or removal of the pod, and water stress at four levels: 100% (as a control), 80%, 60%, and 40% field capacity (FC) during the period of stress. The results showed that annual Medicago species can be considered as semi-drought tolerant species and their recovery ability from mild and moderate drought stress is relatively good. M. polymorpha performed better and showed higher recovery ability in comparison with other tested species. The results of this study showed that elimination of pods from annual Medicago species before sowing enhanced seedling performance under drought stress. However, the effect of pod elimination showed higher significance on growth parameters than nitrogen fixation. The information from this research would be useful for better understanding the physiological basis of changes in drought resistance, as well as targeted breeding programs, to improve the performance of annual Medicago species under conditions of limited or scarce water supply.