INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF HEAT STRESS AND WATER DEFICIT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF CHICKPEA (Cicer arietinum L.) GENOTYPES IN SUDAN

Climate variations pose significant challenges for chickpea production. Increases tolerance to heat stress and water deficit is an important option to increase chickpea productivity in Sudan. This study aimed to evaluate the performance, stability and correlation between different traits of nine chickpea genotypes under different conditions. The genotypes were tested at two locations; Hudeiba for three seasons (2007/08, 2009/10 and 2010/11) and Shambat during season 2008/09. To induce stresses, four treatments were used: non-stress, terminal heat stresses, water stress and combination of heat and water stresses. A split-plot design with three replications was used where the stress treatments were assigned to main plots and genotypes to subplots. The results showed that heat, water and combined stresses significantly affected all studied traits. Heat stress induced more reduction than water stress for most of the traits, however combined stress imposed the highest effect. Significant differences between genotypes for all studied traits were also found. The interactions between the genotypes and treatments were significant for most of studied traits. Some genotypes were found tolerant and stable under water deficit (Wad Hamid and Shendi), heat stress (Hwata), or combined stress (Wad Hamid) conditions. Seed yield positively and significantly correlated with number of pods/plant, number of seeds/plant, 100- seed weight and plant height and these traits could be used as selection criteria for breeding high yielding genotypes. It could be concluded that cultivars differentially responded to heat, water and combined stresses, indicating that further improvement in the tolerance of chickpea to these stresses could be achieved.