Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil

Abstract

Increasingly unpredictable annual rainfall amounts and distribution patterns have far reaching implications for pulse crop biology. Seedling and whole plant survival will be affected given that water is a key factor in plant photosynthesis and also influences the evolving disease spectrum that affects crops. The wild relatives of cultivated lentil are native to drought prone areas, making them good candidates for the evaluation of drought tolerance traits. We evaluated root and shoot traits of genotypes of cultivated lentil and five wild species grown under two water deficit regimes as well as fully watered conditions over a 13 week period indoors. Plants were grown in sectioned polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tubes containing field soil from the A, B, and C horizons. We found that root distribution into different soil horizons varied among wild lentil genotypes. Secondly, wild lentil genotypes employed diverse strategies such as delayed flowering, reduced transpiration rates, reduced plant height, and deep root systems to either escape, evade or tolerate drought conditions. In some cases, more than one drought strategy was observed within the same genotype. Sequence based classification of wild and cultivated genotypes did not explain patterns of drought response. The environmental conditions at their centers of origin may explain the patterns of drought strategies observed in wild lentils. The production of numerous small seeds by wild lentil genotypes may have implications for yield improvement in lentil breeding programs.

Identification of Salt and Drought Biochemical Stress Markers in Several Silene vulgaris Populations

“…Experimental data was analyzing using. The program Statgraphics Centurion v. 16. Before the analysis of variance, the validity of normality assumption was checked by the Shapiro-Wilk test and the homogeneity of variance using the Levene test.…”

“…This has resulted in substantial scientific efforts being invested in the elucidation of abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms in plants, to help mitigate those adverse effects on crop yields [10][11][12][13]. Data generated from these studies have contributed to define appropriate strategies for breeding of enhanced crop stress tolerance [14][15][16]. Paradoxically, most studies on abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms have been conducted in model plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, or in some major crops, which are relatively sensitive to stress [17][18][19].…”

Deep expression scrutiny of juxtaposed wild and cultivated lentil furnishes new insight into aluminium tolerance mechanism

“…Lentil belongs to genus Lens which is extremely versatile, oldest cultivated legume and is exceedingly healthy having high fibre and high protein content [1]. Due to increase in its consumption around the world, lentil production has boosted from 4.7 million tonnes to 7.6 million tonnes from 2010 to 2017 (FAOSTAT) primarily in regions of northern plains of North America and Australia [2]. Lentil production can be enhanced further if we can put a check on a major agricultural obstacle of acidic soils i.e.…”

Root Traits, Nodulation and Root Distribution in Soil for Five Wild Lentil Species and Lens culinaris (Medik.) Grown under Well-Watered Conditions

“…A recent study on wild lentil germplasm in the field and indoors, showed the phylogenetic relationship between genotypes in the context of drought tolerance but root traits were not characterized ( Singh et al, 2016 ). A baseline study of drought tolerance of wild lentil species showed that variation in drought avoidance exists between and within species ( Gorim and Vandenberg, 2017 ). No comprehensive study exists for wild lentil root traits and root distribution patterns in different soil layers.…”