Mehdi Rozrokh, Seyed Hosein Sabaghpour, Mohammad Armin and Mohammad Asgharipour
In order to evaluate the effect of drought stress on biochemical changes in twenty genotypes of chickpea an experiment was conducted in the experimental farm of Rainfed Research Institute of Sararoodi Kermanshah and Research farm of Islamic Azad University of Kermanshah during 2006 and 2007, in two separate experiments, irrigated and rain-fed conditions in a compound test in a randomized complete block design with four replications. In this study 20 newly introduced genotypes were compared based on Indices of drought tolerance. After field experiments conducted between twenty genotype and varieties of chickpea, three drought resistant genotypes (Azad, ILC.482 and ILC.1799) and three drought susceptible genotypes (Hashim, X96. TH62K2 and FLIP.97-219) were identified and the amounts of potassium, sodium and calcium, proline amino acid, soluble proteins, soluble carbohydrate were measured in the grains. In comparison of rain-fed and irrigated conditions, proline concentration in the grains increased, while potassium, sodium and calcium decreased. Measured parameters reaction was different among susceptible and resistance genotypes to drought. All parameters were greater in susceptible genotypes compared with resistance ones. As an overall result it could be said that among the measured biochemical parameters proline can be used as a biochemical indicator of drought resistant in varieties of chickpeas.
