International Journal of Irrigation and Water Management ISSN 2756-3804 Vol. 9 (1), pp. 001-011, January, 2022. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Growth and yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes in response to water stress

Navkiran Randhawa, Jagmeet Kaur, Sarvjeet Singh and Inderjit Singh

Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 141001, Punjab, India.

Accepted 20 February, 2014

Abstract

Twenty chickpea genotypes were grown under rainout shelter to investigate the influence of water stress treatments imposed at varied growth stages; T₁; Control, T₂; One pre-sowing irrigation, T₃; withholding irrigation at flower-initiation, T₄; withholding irrigation at pod-initiation stage. The plant height, branches, dry weight of stem, leaves and root plant^-1, leaf area, leaf area index were recorded at 120 days after sowing (DAS) which showed significant variation with water stress at varied growth stages. The maximum reduction in height and branches was observed when irrigation was restricted at T₂ stage. Restricted irrigation decreased the biomass of stem, leaves and roots leading to reduced leaf area and leaf area index as well. The yield traits viz. 100 seed weight, total number of pods, percentage filled pods were reduced significantly under stress. The grain yield under restricted conditions was reduced by 40.50 to 55.91% over irrigated control in T ₄ to T₂, respectively. Among the tested genotypes, GL28151, RSG963, PDG3 maintained higher growth, yield and yield traits showing their tolerance to water stress, while GL22044, RSG1861 and RVSSG4 were adversely affected most in growth traits and yield as well.

Key words: Water stress, chickpea, growth traits, yield.