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A conservative pattern of water use, rather than deep or profuse rooting, is critical for the terminal drought tolerance of chickpea

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/36/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jxb/err139
 
Title A conservative pattern of water use, rather than deep or
profuse rooting, is critical for the terminal drought tolerance
of chickpea
 
Creator Zaman-Allah, M
Jenkinson, D M
Vadez, V
 
Subject Chickpea
 
Description Chickpea is mostly grown on stored soil moisture, and deep/profuse rooting has been hypothesized for almost three
decades to be critical for improving chickpea tolerance to terminal drought. However, temporal patterns of water
use that leave water available for reproduction and grain filling could be equally critical. Therefore, variation in water
use pattern and root depth/density were measured, and their relationships to yield tested under fully irrigated and
terminal drought stress, using lysimeters that provided soil volumes equivalent to field conditions. Twenty chickpea
genotypes having similar plant phenology but contrasting for a field-derived terminal drought-tolerance index based
on yield were used. The pattern of water extraction clearly discriminated tolerant and sensitive genotypes. Tolerant
genotypes had a lower water uptake and a lower index of stomatal conductance at the vegetative stage than
sensitive ones, while tolerant genotypes extracted more water than sensitive genotypes after flowering. The
magnitude of the variation in root growth components (depth, length density, RLD, dry weight, RDW) did not
distinguish tolerant from sensitive genotypes. The seed yield was not significantly correlated with the root length
density (RLD) in any soil layers, whereas seed yield was both negatively related to water uptake between 23–38 DAS,
and positively related to water uptake between 48–61 DAS. Under these conditions of terminal drought, the most
critical component of tolerance in chickpea was the conservative use of water early in the cropping cycle, explained
partly by a lower canopy conductance, which resulted in more water available in the soil profile during reproduction
leading to higher reproductive success.
 
Publisher Oxford University Press
 
Date 2011
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/36/1/JEB_62_12_4239%E2%80%934252_2011.pdf
Zaman-Allah, M and Jenkinson, D M and Vadez, V (2011) A conservative pattern of water use, rather than deep or profuse rooting, is critical for the terminal drought tolerance of chickpea. Journal of Experimental Botany, 62 (12). pp. 4239-4252. ISSN 0022-0957