Relative Performance of Promising Chickpea (Cicer arientinum L.) Lines under Drought Stress Milieu

Abstract

C hickpea (Cicer arientinum L.) is the most important pulse legume crop mainly grown on residual soil moisture under rain-fed conditions across the world (Shah et al., 2020). Under arid environments, chickpea crop faces terminal drought resulting in drastic decline in productivity (Sharma et al., 2020). The cultivated area in Pakistan under chickpea crop is about 2.2 million hectares out, of which more than 80% of the national cropped area is shared solely by Thal Doab, Punjab, Pakistan (Rafiq et al., 2020). Chickpea occupies a very important place in farming system of Thal region and is the only crop which can grow in less fertile sand dunes and interdunal valleys (Khan et al., 2017). In Pakistan, chickpea is leading pulse legume crop in terms of area under crop but in production it is far below than the average world production (Shaheen et al., 2017;Nadeem et al., 2019). This production gap is attributed to various Abstract | Sustained drought, uneven rain falls, progressively depleting soil moisture and predominant cultivation of chickpea under residual soil moisture condition are major causes of drastic decline in chickpea productivity in Pakistan. Systematic breeding efforts are required for evaluation of available genetic material to evolve drought tolerant chickpea cultivars for drought prone regions of the country. For this purpose, a research experiment was conducted in moisture stress (drought) and non-stress conditions (irrigated) at Gram Breeding Research Station, Kallurkot, Pakistan during 2019-20. Mean performance of various traits revealed significant differences among all the included chickpea advance lines. Drought indices i.e. drought tolerance efficiency (DTE), drought susceptibility (DSI) and yield reduction percentage were calculated to identify the drought tolerant chickpea lines. Correlation analysis showed that the strains possessing higher number of pods plant -1 , more root length and maximum grain weight were comparatively least susceptible to moisture stress along with higher yield potential. Results regarding drought indices also indicated that relatively higher DTE, less DSI and minimum yield reduction percentage were revealed by KK-10001, KK-10015, KK-10019 and Bhakkar-2011. Therefore, these advance lines possess best genetic constitution for moisture stress tolerance and may be utilized further for chickpea genetic improvement program.

Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.) Genotypes’ Assessment Through Diverse Environments

“…Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) occupies an eminent place in the farming system of Pakistan (Akhtar et al, 2021). Overstating its importance is unlikely due to its primary role in sustaining food security, generating revenue, and balancing the ecosystem (Jan et al, 2020;Mahmood et al, 2021).…”