RESPONSE OF CHICKPEA GENOTYPES TO DROUGHT STRESS IN PETRI DISH ENVIRONMENT

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), an important leguminous crop has a dwindling croparea everyday due to climate change, and the overall yield has declined. In a controlled conditionexperiment, four distinct levels of drought were applied to ten different varieties of chickpeas in a petridish using polyethylene glycol (PEG) @ 0, 10, 20, and 30%. As differentiating factors, germinationrate, plumule, and radicle lengths were used. The experiment's results showed that, at 0% PEG, KK-2and Punjab-2008 demonstrated the highest germination rates (99%), while the lowest (0%)germination rates at (30% PEG) were recorded for Chattan and KK-1 genotypes. At 0% polyethyleneglycol (PEG), Chattan and Punjab-2008 had the maximum plumule (0.70 cm) and radicle (7.47 cm)lengths, respectively and with increasing drought they got reduced. Thus, it may be inferred thatdrought impacted negatively but its impact can be lessened by adopting genotypes that are droughtresistant.