Effect of drought stress on carbohydrate content in drought tolerant and susceptible chickpea genotypes

Abstract

Drought stress is one of the major abiotic stresses in agriculture worldwide. The study was carried out to investigate the effect of drought stress on carbohydrate content in drought tolerant and susceptible chickpea genotypes. A field experiment was carried out at Student’s Instructional Farm in a randomized block design with three replications and in the laboratory of Department of Biochemistry during Rabi season of 2013-14 and 2014-15. The tolerant variety accumulated more carbohydrate content than the sensitive one. Results showed that carbohydrate content ranges between 61.51 to 66.64 per cent in the year 2013-14 and 61.44 to 66.53 per cent in the year 2014-15. First year experiment recorded highest carbohydrate content in tolerant genotype K 850 (66.64%) and the lowest value were recorded in susceptible genotype PUSA 372 (61.51 %). In the second year experiment maximum carbohydrate content was recorded in K 850 (66.53%) whereas, the lowest value was noticed in PUSA 372 (61.44 %). Analysis of the data indicates that genotypes diferred significant with regard to carbohydrate content in both of the years. So, carbohydrate in stress condition can be used as markers for selection of drought tolerant genotypes.