Shoot traits and their relevance in terminal drought tolerance of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Purushothaman Ramamoorthy; Krishnamurthy Lakshmanan; Hari Deo Upadhyaya; Vincent Vadez; Rajeev Kumar Varshney

doi:10.1016/j.fcr.2016.07.016

Shoot traits and their relevance in terminal drought tolerance of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Field Crops Res. 2016 Oct:197:10-27. doi: 10.1016/j.fcr.2016.07.016.

Authors

Purushothaman Ramamoorthy¹, Krishnamurthy Lakshmanan², Hari Deo Upadhyaya³, Vincent Vadez², Rajeev Kumar Varshney⁴

Affiliations

¹ International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India; Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (JNTUH), Hyderabad, India.
² International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India.
³ International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India; Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, United States; UWA Institute of Agriculture, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
⁴ International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India; School of Plant Biology and Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, WA, Australia.

Abstract

Chickpea is the second most important legume crop largely grown under semi-arid tropics where terminal drought is one of the major constraints for its productivity. A trait-based selection had been considered more beneficial in drought tolerance breeding to overcome the environmental influence on drought yields. Large number of traits had been suggested in literature, with less indication on their importance and priority, for use in such breeding programs resulting in poor utilization of critical traits in drought tolerance breeding. To identify the most critical traits that contribute to grain yield under drought, 12 chickpea genotypes, with well-defined drought response, were field evaluated by sampling at regular intervals during the cropping period. Large range of variation was observed for shoot biomass productivity, specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf area index (LAI) at different days after sowings (DAS), canopy temperature depression (CTD) at mid-reproductive stages, growth duration and both morphological and analytical yield components. Grain yield under drought was closely associated with the rate of partitioning (p), crop growth rate (C), CTD, phenology, LAI at mid-pod fill stage, pod number m^-2 at maturity, shoot biomass at reproductive growth stages and SLA at physiological maturity. The shoot trait(s) were prioritized based on their significance and contribution to drought tolerance. The trait(s) that conferred tolerance varied across genotypes. The order of traits/plant functions identified as important and critical for the drought tolerance were p, C, CTD, growth duration and other related traits. Relatively less important traits were LAI, SLA at the mid reproductive stage and pod number per unit area at maturity. The traits Dr, seeds pod^-1 and 100-seed weight were found to be least important. Breeding for the best combination of p and C with the right phenology was proposed to be the best selection strategy to enhance terminal drought tolerance in chickpea.

Keywords: Canopy temperature depression; Crop growth rate; Field phenotyping; Partitioning coefficient; Specific leaf area.