Analyzing Drought Tolerance in Indian Chickpea Varieties | InformativeBD

Bhupendra Koul , Devindra Vijay Amla , Indraneel Sanyal , and Ruchi Singh, from the different institute of the India. wrote a research article about, Analyzing Drought Tolerance in Indian Chickpea Varieties. entitled, Analysis of response to water deficit in three Indian varieties of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) for drought tolerance. This research paper published by the International Journal of Agronomy and Agricultural Research (IJAAR). an open access scholarly research journal on Agronomy. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences | NNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

Drought is one of the major abiotic stresses in agriculture for losses in crop productivity worldwide. Three chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) varieties namely P362, P1103 and SBD377 were assessed for response to drought tolerance during vegetative stage, in stress and non-stress environments, under contained conditions. Several physiological parameters including gas exchange, photosynthesis rate, fluorescence, stomatal conductance and water loss per day were monitored simultaneously. P362 variety showed maximum photosynthesis rate in irrigated as well as in drought conditions. This variety also maintained its relative water content (RWC) and water potential (WP) during imposition of similar duration of drought. Due to the maximum elasticity of leaf cells, it maintained its cell turgidity upto 68% RWC to protect itself from water stress, compared to variety P1103 and SBD377. The effective solute concentration and osmotic potential in the irrigated controls at full turgor was lowest in P362 variety, compared to the other two varieties. Osmotic adjustment (OA) was assessed as a capacity factor which is rate of change in turgor pressure with RWC. P362 variety showed a maximum OA value of 0.27 while the values for SBD377 and P1103 were 0.22 and 0.21, respectively. During water stress, the chlorophyll content was minimally reduced in P362 variety, therefore effective quantum yield of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) and photosynthesis rate was maximally maintained. The higher photosynthesis rate under irrigated conditions and maintenance of higher RWC under drought conditions makes P362 variety a promising option for optimum yield under prolonged terminal drought or under rain-fed conditions.

 Read more :  Staphylococcus aureus Drug Resistance in Sinusitis Patients | InformativeBD

Introduction

The land plants have been coping with water stress, ever since they left the seas and colonized the dry land (Thomas 1997). As time passed by, progressive anthropogenic activities of the modern era has made the weather more unpredictable and crop plants dependent on rainwater are still facing the vagaries of the ever changing weather conditions. Because, land plants experience constant fluctuations in the availability of water, they have evolved adaptive features to search for and absorb water through their root systems, to prevent excessive transpirational water loss and to adjust their physiology and biochemistry for survival and sustainable growth and (Zhang et al., 1996; Zhu et al., 1997).

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an ancient legume crop believed to have originated in South Eastern Turkey and adjoining parts of Syria (Singh 1997). It is the second most important pulse crop of the world and covers 15% of the cultivated area thus, contributing to 14% (7.9 million tonnes) of the world’s total pulses productivity of 58 million tonnes. India is the largest producer of chickpea in the world but the yield has been stagnating for last two decades primarily due to abiotic and biotic stresses and relatively slow progress in its genetic improvement (Dita et al., 2006; FAO 2012).

Chickpea plays a significant role in the nutrition of both rural and the urban population in the developing world. Improving its adaptation to drought including terminal drought is critical for sustained grain yield under rain-fed cultivation. From an estimated 3.7 million tonnes annual loss in chickpea through water deficit in semi-arid regions, about 2.1 million tonnes could be recovered by crop improvement efforts (Bhatnagar-Mathur et al., 2009). However, the multigenic and quantitative nature of drought tolerance makes it difficult to increase abiotic stress tolerance using conventional plant breeding methods and availability of genotypes tolerant to drought (Singh et al., 2012). Unfortunately, cultivated chickpea has high morphological but narrow genetic diversity and understanding the genetic processes of this plant is hindered by the fact that its genome has not yet been annotated for adequate EST and SNP resources (Varshney et al., 2013; Jain et al., 2013). Although, chickpea is considered as drought-tolerant cool-season food legume but terminal drought still limits chickpea production and grain yield. Due to terminal drought seed yield can be reduced by 58−95% compared to irrigated plants with reduction in pod production per plant and abortion are the chief factors affecting the overall grain yield (Behboudian et al., 2001; Leport et al., 2006).

In chickpea, a deep root system, osmotic adjustment, high leaf water potential, early flowering and maturity, high biomass, and apparent redistribution of stem and leaf dry matter during pod filling are associated with drought tolerance (Morgan et al., 1991; Subbarao et al., 1995; Leport et al., 2006). The requirement of water during flowering, pod development and seed filling stages is crucial for the productivity of chickpea plant. The influence of drought on yield of chickpea has been documented, but extensive research on the physiological responses of water stress on chickpea is limited (Sheldrake and Saxena 1973; Turner and Begg 1981). Leaf water potential is a good indicator of plant water stress and correlates well with different plant functions and crop productivity in legumes (Sojka and Parsons 1983; Phogat et al., 1984)

Three chickpea varieties P362, P1103 and SBD377 were grown for the assessment of drought stress response under water deficit and non-stress environments. Various physiological parameters like plant water loss per day, plant height, total photosynthesis area, relative water content, plant water potential, gas exchange, fluorescence and wet sensor reading of soil parameters were assessed. Based on these physiological parameters, the best responding variety to drought stress environment was determined during the course of the study, which can be incorporated in chickpea breeding programmes for the introgression of drought tolerance trait in other high yielding but drought sensitive varieties for cultivation in rain fed areas and genetic improvement of chickpea for drought tolerance.

Reference

Arnon DI. 1949. Copper enzymes in isolated chloroplasts. Polyphenol oxidase in Beta vulgaris. Plant Physiology 24, 1–15.

Araus JL, Slafer GA, Reynolds MP, Royo C. 2002. Plant breeding and drought in C-3 cereals: what should we breed for? Annals of Botany 89, 925–940.

Baker NR, Harbinson J, Kramer DM. 2007. Determining the limitations and regulation of photosynthetic energy transduction in leaves. Plant Cell and Environment 30, 1107–1125.

Beckett RP. 1997. Pressure-volume analysis of a range of poikilohydric plants implies the existence of negative turgor in vegetative cells. Annals of Botany 79, 145–152.

Behboudian MH, Ma Q, Turner NC, Palta JA. 2001. Reactions of chickpea to water stress: yield and seed composition. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 81, 1288–1291.

Bhatnagar-Mathur P, Vadez V, Jyostna Devi M, Lavanya M, Vani G,Sharma KK. 2009. Genetic engineering of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) with the P5CSF129A gene for osmoregulation with implications on drought tolerance. Molecular Breeding 23, 591–606.

Corwin DL, Lesch SM, Shouse PJ, Soppe R, Ayars JE. 2003. Identifying soil properties that influence cotton yield using soil sampling directed by apparent soil electrical conductivity. Agronomy Journal 95 (2), 352–364.

Deeba F, Pandey A K, Ranjan S, Mishra A, Singh R, Sharma Y K, Shirke PA, Pandey V. 2012. Physiological and proteomic responses of cotton (Gossypium herbaceum L.) to drought stress. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 53, 6–18.

Dietz KJ, Pfannschmidt T. 2011. Novel regulators in photosynthetic redox control of plant metabolism and gene expression. Plant Physiology 155, 1477–1485.

Dita MA, Rispail Prats NE, Rubiales D, Singh KB. 2006. Biotechnology approaches to overcome biotic and abiotic stress constraints in legumes. Euphytica 147, 1–24.

F.A.O. Statistical Database FAOSTAT Agriculture data. 2012. URL http://faostat.fao.org/faostat.

Frachebound Y, Haldimann P, Leipner J, Stamp P. 1999. Chlorophyll fluorescence as a selection tool for cold tolerance of photosynthesis in maize (Zea mays L.). Journal of Experimental Botany 50, 1533−1540.

Giardi MT, Cona A, Geiken B, Kucera T, Masojidek J and Mattoo AK. 1996. Long-term drought stress induces structural and functional reorganization of photosystem II. Planta 199, 118–125.

Gill SS, Tuteja N. 2010. Reactive oxygen species and antioxidant machinery in abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 48, 909−930.

Güler NS, Sağlam A, Demiralay M and Kadioğlu A. 2012. Apoplastic and symplastic solute concentrations contribute to osmotic adjustment in bean genotypes during drought stress. Turkish Journal of Biology 36, 151–160.

Jain. 2013. A draft genome sequence of the pulse crop chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). Plant Journal 74, 715–729.

Kalefetoglu T and Ekmekci Y. 2009. Alterations in photochemical and physiological activities of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars under drought stress. Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science 195, 335−346.

Kumar A, Singh DP. 1998. Use of physiological indices as a screening technique for drought tolerance in oilseed Brassica species. Annals of Botany 81, 413–420.

Kupfer K. 2005. ‘Electromagnetic aquametry: Electromagnetic wave interaction with water and moist substances’. (Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York).

Lawlor DW, Tezara W. 2009. Causes of decreased photosynthetic rate and metabolic capacity in water-deficient leaf cells: a critical evaluation of mechanisms and integration of processes. Annals of Botany 103, 561–579.

Lawlor DW. 1995. Effects of water deficit on photosynthesis. In ‘Environment and plant metabolism’. (Eds N Smirnoff) pp. 129–160. (Bios Scientific Publishers Ltd.: Oxford)

Leport L, Turner NC, Davies SL, Siddique KHM. 2006. Variation in pod production and abortion among chickpea cultivars under terminal drought. European Journal of Agronomy 24, 236–246.

Lu C, Zhang J. 1999. Effects of water stress on photosystem II photochemistry and its thermostability in wheat plants. Journal of Experimental Botany 50, 1199−1206.

Massacci A, Nabiev SM, Pietrosanti L, Nematov SK, Chernikova TN, Thor K, Leipner J. 2008. Response of the photosynthetic apparatus of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) to the onset of drought stress under field conditions studied by gas exchange analysis and chlorophyll fluorescence imaging. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 46, 189–195.

Maxwell K, Johnson GN. 2000. Chlorophyll fluorescence – a practical guide. Journal of Experimental Botany 51, 659–668.

Monneveux P, Rekika D, Acevedo E, Merah O. 2006.  Effect  of  drought  on  leaf  gas  exchange,  a carbon isotope discrimination, transpiration efficiency and productivity in field grown durum wheat genotypes. Plant Science 170, 867–872.

Morgan JM, Rodriguez-Maribona B, Knights EJ. 1991 Adaptation to water-deficits in chickpea breeding lines by osmoregulation: relationship to grain-yield in the field. Field Crops Research 27, 61–70.

Osmond CD. 1994. What is photoinhibition? Some insights from the comparisons of sun and shade plants. In: ‘Photoinhibition of photosynthesis-from molecular mechanisms to the field’. (Eds NR Baker, JR Bowyer) pp. 1–24. (BIOS: Oxford)

Oukarroum A, Madidi SE, Schansker G, Strasser RJ (2007) Probing the responses of barley cultivars (Hordeum vulgare L.) by chlorophyll a fluorescence OLKJIP under drought stress and re-watering. Environmental and Experimental Botany 60, 438−446.

Phogat BS, Singh DP, Singh P. 1984. Response of cowpea (Vigna sinensis (L.) Walp.) and Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek to irrigation. Irrigation science 5, 47–60.

Schulze ED. 1986. Carbon dioxide and water vapor exchange in response to drought in the atmosphere and soil. Annual Review of Plant Physiology 37, 247–274.

Sheldrake R, Saxena NP. 1979. Growth and development of chickpeas under progressive moisture stress. In ‘Stress Physiology in Crop Plants’. (Eds H Mussell, RC Staples) pp. 465–483. (Wiley: New York)

Singh AK, Sopory SK, Wu R, Singla-Pareek SL. 2012. Transgenic approaches for producing abiotic stress tolerant plants. In ‘Abiotic stress adaptation in plants: Physiological molecular genomic foundation’. (Eds A Pareek, SK Sopory, HJ Bohert) pp. 418–438. (Springer: The Netherlands)

Singh  KB.  1997.  Chickpea  (Cicer  arietinum  L.). Field Crops Research 53, 161–170.

Sojka RE and Parsons JE. 1983 Soybean water status and canopy microclimate relationships at four row spacings. Agronomy Journal 75, 961–968.

Stadelmann EJ. 1984. The derivation of the cell wall elasticity function from cell turgor potential. Journal of Experimental Botany 35, 859–868.

Subbarao GB, Johansen C, Slinkard AE, Rao RCN, Saxena NP, Chauhan YS. 1995. Strategies for improving drought resistance in grain legumes. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 14, 169–523.

Tezara W, Martinez D, Rengifo E, Herrera A. 2003. Photosynthetic responses of the tropical spiny shrub Lycium nodosum (Solanaceae) to drought, soil salinity and saline spray. Annals of Botany 92, 757−765.

Thomas H. 1997. Drought resistance in plants, in: Basra AS, Basra RK (Eds.), Mechanisms of environmental stress resistance in plants. Harwood Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, pp. 1–42.

Turner NC, Begg JE. 1981. Plant-water relations and adaptation to stress. Plant and Soil 58, 97–107.

Varshney RK. 2013. Draft genome sequence of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) provides a resource for trait improvement. Nature Biotechnology 31, 240–248.

Zhang J, Klueva N, Nguygen HT. 1996. Plant adaptation and crop improvement for arid and semi-arid environments. Proceedings of the fifth international conference on desert development, 12–17.

Zhu JK, Hasegawa PM, Bressan RA. 1997. Molecular aspects of osmotic stress in plants. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 16, 253–277.

Source : Analysis of response to water deficit in three Indian varieties of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) fordrought tolerance