Evaluation of eleven faba bean (vici faba l.) genotypes under four water regimes

Eleven faba bean genotypes were evaluated under four water regimes at Hudeiba Research Station Farm during 96/97 and 97/98 seasons. The water regimes were: watering every 10 days throughout the growing season (D0); watering every 10 days during the vegetative stage and 20 days during the reproductive stage (D1); watering every 20 days during the vegetative stage and 10 days during the reproductive stage (D2) and watering every 20 days throughout the growing season (D3). The results showed that the average number of days to 50% flowering and 90% maturity were significantly decreased when irrigation was applied at 20 day intervals throughout the growth period of the crop. Seed weights of the tested genotypes were also affected by moisture stress, C.86 being the best seed yielder as it gave more than 57 g during both seasons of the study. The reproductive stage appeared to be the most critical as seed yield of faba bean genotypes was greatly reduced when stressed during this stage. The genotype C.34/1/1/1 showed a good performance and seemed to be tolerant to water stress during the reproductive stage as was clear when tested under D1 water regime. However, the seed yield obtained from this genotype when stressed during its vegetative growth, only exceeded the seed yield obtained under normal conditions of irrigation. The released cultivar Basabeer (BB7) showed approximately the same percent seed yield reduction when stressed at D1 during both seasons. When stressed throughout the growing season (D3), Daba 1/1 showed the lowest percent seed yield reduction of 20% and 14 % during the first and second season respectively. All genotypes showed better seed yield with normal irrigation during the reproductive stage. However, most of them exhibited higher percent seed yield reduction (21% - 43.1 %) when stressed during the reproductive stage