Screening core germplasm of chickpea CICER arietinum l for cold tolerance at reproductive stage and investigating the underlying defence mechanisms in vegetative and reproductive components

Abstract

Chickpea is an important pulse crop usually grown in winter in an optimum temperature range between 15-25°C. Being a cool-season crop, it gets exposed to sub-optimal temperature (lt 20/10°C) at the reproductive stage during its normal cultivation season. Consequently its yield gets constrained because of inhibition of vegetative growth, reproductive failures shown as a drop in flowers and pods numbers, less pod filling, and reduced seed number. Currently, Cold tolerant cultivars are not available. Moreover, the effects of cold stress on chickpea are not fully reported and need to be probed. newline