Effect of drought stress on Leaf Chlorophyll fluorescence, yield, yield components and economic water use efficiency of selected lentil genotypes

In Khorasan Razavi province, Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) has been ranked as the second cultivation area among the planted pulses. In order to investigate the effect of drought stress on yield and yield components of selected lentil drought tolerant genotypes, a split-plots experiment with three replications was conducted in Mashhad Ferdowsi University Filed during 2012-13. The main factor included two levels of irrigation: Non drought stress and drought stress (providing 100 and 40 percent of water requirement) and the sub-factor was including nine genotypes. Results showed that in non-stress conditions, number of seed per pod, number of pods per square meter, harvest index, seed yield and biological yield in MLC356 genotype were significantly higher than other genotypes, but under drought stress, the last two traits showed a severe reduction. Under stress conditions, the highest and the lowest levels of both maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II and economic water use efficiency were observed in Cabralinta and MLC363 genotypes, respectively. Also, it is determined that the number of fertilized pods per plant and 1000 seed weight were the most important traits affecting lentil yield.