Evaluation of chickpea genotypes for heat stress under elevated temperature

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the short time exposure of high temperature during flowering period to six chickpea genotypes. Chickpea plants were exposed to high temperature (34.37/15.10 ºC) and control (30.90/13.50 ºC) for 10 days at flowering stage. High temperature stress significantly decreased pollen fertility percentage (21.12%) and pollen germination percentage (45.77%) compared to optimum temperature or control (53.45% and 66.04%) respectively. High temperature also significantly reduces the plant height (24.97cm), total dry matter (8.277 g plant-1) compared to control (28.05 cm and 14.55 g plant-1) respectively whereas, high temperature stress significantly increased the antioxidant enzymes such as peroxidase (0.788 µmoles min-1mg-1 of protein) and superoxidase dismutase (67.28 U/mg protein) enzyme activity compared to control (0.442 µmoles min-1mg-1 of protein and 34.85 U/mg protein), respectively.