Evaluation of morpho-physiological traits of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) in tolerant lines under drought-stress condition Saeid Malekzadeh Shafaroudi , Ali Ganjali and Manda Safavi * School of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad 91779-48978, Iran ِDrought as an abiotic stress is one of the most severe stresses affecting yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in semi-arid regions, e.g Iran. In order to study the effect of drought on four distinct genotypes of chickpea including ICC4958 (an international drought-resistant line), MCC696 (a local candidate line for drought-resistance), MCC361 (a common control cultivar) and MCC759 (as a drought-sensitive line) were selected and planted (June, 2008) in a factorial-split plot experiment with three replications in the glasshouse of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad-Iran. Stress was applied on the basis of field capacity (FC) at flowering stage (25% FC). Three times of sampling (in pre-stress, stress and recovery stages) were treated and several morpho-physiological traits were studied. The main goal was to evaluate the most crucial characters associated with the resistance to the stress in the tolerant chickpea plants. Aerial parts (shoot dry weight / total dry weight) of sensitive genotype were dramatically developed while the root development was shown a significant decline during the stress; conversely, resistant genotypes showed a slight reduction in the shoot development and a slight increase in the root. The same indices of control genotype remained approximately constant. At recovery stage (irrigated same as the pre-stress period with full-FC) the root proportion of all lines were developed and their shoot were declined significantly. There was a considerable discrepancy between ICC4958 and the others at recovery stage. It is supposed that its aerial-part development would be mostly completed at preliminary stages and therefore the stress can not impose severe consequents on it. It is supposed that resistant genotypes deal with drought by the reason of the proper appropriation of development among the organs at the stress period.

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