Evaluation of fall sowing of cold tolerant chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasms under complementary irrigation in Mashhad condition: 1- Phenological and Morphological characteristics

Document Type : Research Article

Abstract

In order to evaluate phenological and morphological characteristics of cold tolerant chickpea
germplasms, an experiment was carried out based on incomplete block design with 81 chickpea germplasms and three replications in 12th Oct. 2006 at Mashhad Ferdowsi University, Agricultural Station. These germplasms had been selected among 700 accessions from RSPS (Research Center for Plant Sciences) Seed Bank after some cold tolerance studies in 10 years. Irrigation was done three times, immediately after sowing, 20 days after that and at flowering stage. Before occurring of winter cold, type and stage of plant growth were measured. Also, phenological and morphological characteristics of germplasms including emergence, flowering and ripening, stage, plant height, branches number per plant and branches length per plant were measured. Based on results, there were significant differences among germplasms for all of the measured characteristics. The length of vegetative period (emergence to flowering stage) was more than 170 days for 57% of germplasms. Plant height for 27% of the germplasms was more than 46 cm. 11% of the germplasms had more than 26 branch per plant. Thus, it can be concluded that positive effects resulted from improving of phenological traits in fall sowing , caused for morphological and yield enhancement.

20.1001.1.20081472.1388.7.2.15.5

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