Morpho-physiological Variability and Yield Determinants for Drought Tolerance in Blackgram [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper]

Background: An understanding of genotypic differences to water deficit stress can help in identifying genotypes that can tolerate drought with reasonable grain yield. The present experiment was conducted to assess the physiological and yield-related parameters of ten black gram genotypes under water deficit stress environment. Methods: We evaluated ten diverse black gram genotypes for yield and drought-related traits under water deficit stress (3.98% moisture content) and non-stress (14.35% moisture content) environments in separate pot experiments following complete randomized designs with three replications during Kharif 2015-16. Result: Analysis of variance revealed significant genetic variation among the genotypes for almost all the observed traits. The traits viz., 100-seed weights, proline content, pods per plant, relative leaf water content, chlorophyll content and seed yield per plant showed high heritability estimates coupled with a high genetic advance under both the environments. Based on grain yield efficiency index, the genotypes AKU 10-6, COBG 10-06 and NDUK 13-4 were drought efficient with high yield under stress condition.