Physiological approaches to genetic enhancement of drought resistance in chickpea.
2004
Singh, D.N., Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur (India)
Six chickpea genotypes, viz., C 214, Phule G-5, RSG 143-1, Vijay, Katila and K 850 having different degree of drought tolerance were selected. Different kind of adaptive mechanisms were identified and none of the genotypes studied have been found to have all adaptive traits at a time. Broadly, two categories of chickpea genotypes were identified, they were either drought avoidance or having high yielding traits. The study clearly distinguished the shoot and root based traits that confer tolerance to drought. Shoot characters involve the ability of osmatic adjustment in water stress, maintenance of high leaf water potentials or relative water content, high grain filling rate and source synthase activity in grains, While high yielding traits involve extensive branching of primary and secondary branch that support large numbers of pods, long pod duration, high biomass and harvest Index. On the other hand, high root length density and dry weight, extensive lateral branching and increase in total root length were found effective root traits supporting efficient moisture extraction from the soil. Most of the root characters have significant positive associations with seed size. Some of the early flowering genotypes had drought avoidance characters coupled with quick emergent traits and high shoot vigour large sized seed for early root establishment. The study showed variation in the same genotype. It can be concluded that faster biomass accumulation, early vigour, high biomass, high branch number and pod number, osmotic adjustment, deep root system, high sources synthese activity and harvest index could be potential drought tolerant traits in chickpea. These traits need to be incorporated in the genotypes having high yielding base.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Indian Council of Agricultural Research