Characterization of drought tolerant accessions identified from the minicore of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Terminal drought is one of the major causes of yield losses in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and there is scope for recovery of major part of this loss through genetic improvement. The progress in breeding for drought tolerance is slow due to the quantitative and temporal variability of available moisture across years and the low genotypic variance in yield under drought. Deep and prolific root system is a high priority trait that can improve drought tolerance in chickpea. Ten accessions which were identified as drought tolerant based on drought susceptible index (DSI) and drought tolerant efficiency per cent (DTE %) were evaluated during rabi 2006-07 along with stanadred check Annigeri-1 and drought tolerant checks ICC 4958 and ICC 10448 under irrigated and rainfed condition for seed yield and root traits. Wide range of genetic variability, moderate to high heritability and high genetic advance for yield and its component traits was observed in drought tolerant accessions evaluated under moisture stress and irrigated situations during 2006-07. Among the drought tolerant genotypes evaluated, ICC 13124 showed maximum yield levels under irrigated (1220 kg/ha) as well as rainfed condition (990 kg/ha). The per cent reduction in yield was minimum (18.9 %) as compared to checks under moisture stress for this genotype. Observations on root length, root weight and root volume showed that ICC 13124 was equally good in respect of root traits which can be used in the breeding programme aimed at drought tolerance.