Drought tolerance of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) varieties in seedling and adult stages

Drought stress is one of the most important limiting factors in the expansion and regeneration of plants in the agricultural systems and natural environment, which the best way to deal with it is to introduce cultivars resistant to stress. For this purpose, by experimenting in the 2015 -2016 cropping year, the response of 5 cultivars of chickpea including 3 Kabuli cultivars (Arman, Azad and ILC482) and 2 Desi cultivars (Pirooz and Kaka) to drought stress resistance under 5 levels of water potential (0, -3, -6, -9 and -12 times), using 6000 polyethylene glycol in the laboratory in a factorial design in a completely randomized design with 3 replications. Cultivars were evaluated in field conditions in the form of a randomized complete block design with 4 replications at the research site of the Kurdistan Agricultural Research Center. The results showed that there are significant relationships between the characteristics measured in laboratory and field conditions. Among the studied cultivars, only Desi cultivars showed good germination potentials in (-9) and (-12) times. Therefore, in terms of drought stress tolerance at the germination stage, they had a significant advantage over Kabuli cultivars. In reducing the potential from zero to (-6) times, the greatest difference was seen in all traits. The highest number of days to flowering, day to maturity and the number of seeds per plant belonged to Kaka cultivar and the highest grain yield belonged to Arman cultivar. Cluster analysis revealed the similarity of Kabuli cultivars and their genetic distance from Desi cultivars.