Abstract—Drought is one of the limiting factors for better plant performance and higher yield. New variety selection is difficult due to the wide range of plant stress responses with overlapping functions between their components creating complex mechanisms of resistance. One of the pre-requisites for successful breeding for drought tolerance is availability of reliable methods for screening of desirable genotypes. Classical breeding may be complemented with laboratory methods creating models for simulation of water deficiency and drought conditions. Studies were conducted to find out the effect of reduced water potential treatments on germination and five seedling growth related characters viz., plumule length, radicle length, fresh and dry weight of plumule and radicle and vigour index in mungbean genotypes. In laboratory experiments, water deficiency was simulated by polyethylene glycol (PEG) of MW 6000 in the following concentrations viz., -0.4, -0.6 and -0.8 MPa for seed germination. A linear reduction in germination, shoot and root length, and their corresponding fresh and dry weight was observed for the genotypes as the concentration of PEG increased. The level of the negative effect of the osmoticum on developmental processes was genotype and the reduced water potential dependent. Amongst screened mungbean genotypes, genotype SML-837 recorded no germination at -0.8MPa and this would be critical level of water stress for mungbean whereas genotypes with higher germination index SML-1411 and SML-1136 were found to possess higher level of tolerance to drought.
 

Index Terms—germplasm, PEG-6000, seed germination, Vigna radiata, water stress

Cite: Rajwinder Kaur, Jagmeet Kaur, and T. S. Bains, "Screening of Mungbean Genotypes for Drought Tolerance Using Different Water Potential Levels," Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 159-164, June 2017. Doi: 10.18178/joaat.4.2.159-164