Effect of Soil Moisture Content on Seedling Emergence and Early Growth of Some Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.) Genotypes

At the crop level, the drought stress accounts for most variations in yield. a controlledglasshouse investigation at day/night temperatures of 22/15°c based at perth city, westernaustralia was performed (in 2006) to assess the influence of different soil moisture contents(field capacity percentage basis) on emergence as well as early plant growth in twentychickpea genotypes. the experiment was laid out in split plot design with soil moisture contentas the main treatment and genotype as sub-treatment. significant differences (p <0.001) as regards plant emergence and early growth were observed among different soilmoisture contents (from 100 to 50, then to 25% field capacity). this brought about a quadraticreduction in mean emergence percentage, delayed the first day to emergence and suppressedthe early growth in all the chickpea genotypes. highly significant differences werealso noticed among the genotypes for mean emergence percentage, first day to emergence,plant height, leaf area, total above-ground biomass (plant size) as well as specific leaf area.significant interaction effect of soil moisture contents and genotypes were observed only forsome of the characteristics. inverse relationship between first day to emergence with plantheight (r= - 0.87**) and above-ground biomass (r= -0.84**) were observed, indicating thatthe chickpea genotypes which emerged sooner produced greater plant size. seed size anddensity were found to have no relationship with plant size. although the kabuli types on averagegerminated faster and produced larger plants as opposed to the desi types under thelimited soil moisture content, but there was no consistency observed among the chickpeagenotypes. susceptibility of the genotypes to limited soil moisture condition was shownthrough relatively longer delays in time to emergence (lower germination rate) and reductionin seedling parameters as compared to the resistant genotypes. final average abovegroundbiomass (plant size) and plant height under the limited soil moisture content, as opposedto adequate moisture level (f. c. 25% vs. 100%), were reduced 79-85% in kabuli and77-79% in desi types, respectively.