Vegetos

Abstract

Salinity is an abiotic hinderance in expanding chickpea in non-conventional area. We performed morphological and physiological analyses of chickpea genotypes to investigate the response of various chickpea genotypes under saline and control conditions, which confirmed the contrasting responses of various genotypes under stress. evaluation for yield parameters viz., plant height, days to flowering, days to maturity, 100 seed weight, yield per plant and physiological parameters like RWC (Relative Water Content), MSI (Membrane Stability Index) and Na: K ratio showed that Salinity reduced the seed yield of all genotypes. Yield reduction of different genotypes varied from 10% to 57%. There was a strong relation between the stem Na:K ratio and yield per plant. The lower the ratio, higher was yielding per plant indicating that the plants that were able to exclude the sodium and prevent it from going to stem showed better tolerance to salinity. The Na:K ratio the genotypes like CSG-8962,ICCV00104,ICCV06101 and JG-62 were showing the minimum values in shoot tissue showing the indication of salt tolerance. The quantitative morphophysiological data was analysed and euclidean distances were calculated and genotypes grouped as per SAHN. The highly tolerant lines CSG 8962 and JG 62 have formed a distinct group. Similarly the newly identified tolerant lines in this study ICCV06101, ICCV00104 also formed a distinct group along with ICCV 10 which is also a reported donor for salt tolerance.