Authors : Shahram Azizi-e-Chakherchaman, Hossein Mostafaei, Askar Yari, Mohammad Hassanzadeh, Shahzad Jamaati-e-Somarin and Reza Easazadeh
Abstract: Drought is one of the most important abiotic stresses that limit crop production in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Lentil (Lens culinaris L.), a valuable legume crop, is produced mainly as rain-fed in Iran. An experiment was conducted to study the relationships between Relative Water Content (RWC), Cell Membrane Stability (CMS) and duration of growth period with grain yield of 11 advanced genotypes, cultivars and a local genotype at the Ardabil research center for agriculture and natural resources, Ardabil, Iran. Experimental design was a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications under both rain-fed and irrigated conditions. Combined ANOVA analysis procedure showed significant differences among all the evaluated traits. Significant differences between characters revealed that there was high variation between the traits studied. Means for characters under study showed that grain yield, RWC, CMS and duration of growth period decreased in rain-fed conditions, but cell membrane leakage (electrical conductivity) increased. Correlation coefficients showed strongly positive relation between grain yield with RWC (r = + 0.98**), strongly negative and non significant with CMS (r = -0.32ns) and strongly negative relation between grain yield and the days to maturity (r = -0.78**). The results of the experiment also revealed that there were not a strong relation between yield and calculated traits for drought tolerance except RWC. This character therefore, could be effective in evaluation of drought tolerance and identification of high yielding genotypes (ILL 6031, ILL 9893 and ILL 8095).
Shahram Azizi-e-Chakherchaman, Hossein Mostafaei, Askar Yari, Mohammad Hassanzadeh, Shahzad Jamaati-e-Somarin and Reza Easazadeh, 2009. Study of Relationships of Leaf Relative Water Content, Cell Membrane Stability and Duration of Growth Period with Grain Yield of Lentil under Rain-Fed and Irrigated Conditions. Research Journal of Biological Sciences, 4: 842-847.