Screening of hirsutum cotton genotypes for water stress tolerance in polybags

Abstract

A polybag experiment was conducted with twenty one hirsutum cotton genotypes grown at three soil moisture (100, 50 and 25% field capacity) levels during 2014 at Crop physiology division, Agriculture Research Station, Hebballi farm, UAS, Dharwad to screen for water stress condition based on seedling growth and biochemical changes. Varying soil moisture stress was imposed from 21 days after sowing till 45 days. Then plants were extracted for recording observations. Results indicated that as stress level increases, the root length, root weight, lateral root number and leaf proline content increased whereas, chlorophyll content decreased. The shoot biomass decreased with increase in moisture stress, resulting in increased root to shoot ratio. However the degree of change varied with genotypes. The genotypes viz., Sahana, BS-37, LRA-5166, CCH-12-3, GBHV- 177, BS39, GBHV-182, ARBH-1352, which showed higher root weight, shoot weight, total dry matter, proline and chlorophyll content under higher moisture stress condition are proposed to be drought tolerant genotypes.