Maternal environment effect on drought stress tolerance of chickpea varieties at germination stage

This research was conducted to evaluate the effect of drought stress andnutritioning with natural products on seed vigour under drought stress condition. Farm treatments were drought stress in four levels including normal irrigation (control), irrigation cessation at flowering, podding and flowering to physiological maturity stages and spraying with natural products in three level including spraying with distilled water (control), spraying with humic acid and spraying with seaweed extract and three varieties Hashem, ILC 482and local Miami (Local landrace) were used. Drought stress at germination stage induced by 0.8 MPa polyethylene glycol solution. The results showed that stressed seeds were larger than normal seeds and had higher germination percentage and mean germination time. Spraying could not alleviate the negative effect of drought stress. Totally drought stress on maternal plant was effective on stress tolerance and Miami (local landrace) was better than the other varieties. Results demonstrated that it is possible to enhance germination in stressed condition with making change in maternal environment.