Drought effects on shoot traits and introduction of new indices in chickpea to identify drought tolerant and susceptible genotypes

• Published in: Genetic resources and crop evolution 2024-12, Vol.71 (8), p.5095-5112
• Main Authors: Azizian, A., Fotovat, R., Bahramnejad, B., Kanouni, H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chickpeas; Crop yield; Drought; Drought resistance; Dry season; Flowering; Genotypes; Legumes; Life Sciences; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Quantitative trait loci; Research Article; Temperature tolerance
• ISSN: 0925-9864; 1573-5109
• DOI: 10.1007/s10722-024-01954-z

Chickpea is an important legume, which is mainly planted in the dry season. Drought stress at the end of the season during flowering and pod formation is one of the most important factors limiting production in chickpea. We aimed to investigate the effect of drought stress on yield and related traits, as well as to evaluate and determine the most appropriate indices of drought tolerance in chickpeas. Twenty chickpea genotypes (in 2017–2019) were used as material. The experiment was set up as randomized complete block design under normal and drought conditions. The effect of drought and genotype was significant for all traits. Drought reduced all traits except unfilled pod percentage and canopy temperature traits. Shoot length density and 100-seed weight had the highest direct and positive effect, while days to flowering had the highest negative and significant effect on grain yield. Sixteen previous different drought tolerance indices and two new indices namely: Tolerance Ranking Index (TRI) and Relative Tolerance Index (RTI) were estimated based on grain yield in normal and drought conditions. Based on the results, Harmonic Mean (HAM), Geometric Mean Productivity (GMP), Stress Tolerance Index (STI), TRI and RTI were the best indices to identify tolerant genotypes. TRI and RTI exhibited a positive significant simple correlation with Yp, Ys, HAM, STI and GMP, but their correlations with SSI and Yield Reduction index (YR) were significantly negative. TRI and RTI are powerful to select tolerant genotypes and can be used as indices in the development of QTL populations, due to their association with yield stability under both normal and drought conditions. Also, all superior drought stress indices identified ILC1799, ILC482 and FLIP90-96 as the most tolerant genotypes.