Evaluation of perennial wild Cicer species for drought resistance

Abstract

About 90% of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in the world is grown under rainfed conditions where drought is one of the major constraints limiting its productivity. Unlike the cultivated chickpea, wild Cicer species possesses sources of resistance to multiple stresses; we therefore evaluated perennial wild Cicer species for resistance to drought. C. anatolicum, C. microphyllum, C. montbretii, C. oxydon and C. songaricum were compared with special checks; C. echinospermum, C. pinnatifidum and C. reticulatum and five cultivated chickpeas. After the cultivated chickpeas were killed, accessions were evaluated using a 1-5 scale, where 1 = highly drought resistant (no visible drought effect and full recovery after three successive wiltings) and 5 = highly drought susceptible (leaves and branches dried out, no recovery at all). All accessions of perennial wild Cicer species were significantly superior to those annual wild species and the cultivated chickpeas including the best drought tolerant chickpea, ICC 4958 under drought conditions. Perennial wild Cicer species did not only recover after wilting and drying out above ground level, they also tolerated high temperatures up to 41.8°C. But, they do not cross with the cultivated chickpeas. C. anatolicum should be taken account in long term breeding programs because it has closer affinities to the first crossability group than the others.

Breeding and genomics approaches to increase crop yield under drought stress in climate change scenario

“…TFs are potential candidate genes for developing drought tolerant plants and regulators of various genes that help the plants to effectively sustain drought stress. Molecular tools facilitate the identification of such important genes controlling traits related to drought tolerance [62][63][64][65]. Apart from the general regulatory mechanisms, TFs are recorded to be regulated by miRNAs and vice versa.…”

Wild Relative and Transgenic Innovation for Enhancing Crop Adaptation to Warmer and Drier Climate

“…Superior drought-resistance traits have been identified in WRs of many important crop species, such as rice (Liu et al 2004), barley (Nevo 2007), wheat (Reynolds et al 2007), chickpea (Toker et al 2007;Canci and Toker 2009), potato (Coleman 2008), sunflower (Rauf 2008), and groundnut (Nautiyal et al 2008). The drought-resistance traits reported in or derived from wild wheat species are high WUE (Nevo 2007;Reynolds et al 2007), early vigor (Ter Steege et al 2005), high productive tillers, high grain weight, and better yield stability under water-limited conditions (Baalbaki et al 2006).…”

“…One of the most common drought-resistance traits is high WUE, which is also observed in WRs of other crop species such as wild potato (Coleman 2008) and wild sunflower (Rauf 2008). Other potentially useful drought-resistance traits include a better recovery rate after severe drought stress in wild Cicer species (Toker et al 2007) and high harvest index under drought in wild sunflower species (Rauf 2008). Some crop WRs such as Glycine latifolia are able to tolerate a very low soil moisture and low leaf water content (McLean, James, and Xue, unpublished).…”

Variation on Photosynthetic Performance in Kiwifruit Seedling During Drought Stress and Rewatering

“…At present, 1/3 of the world's land area is in arid or semi-arid state, and drought due to insufficient precipitation or precipitation patterns is the most devastating in many abiotic stresses and an important impact on crop yields Factors, each year due to drought lead to crop yields of more than 50% [1,2]. The mechanism of plant resistance to drought is complex and diverse.…”