Background: In the agricultural context, drought is a period of deficient water conditions, resulting in negative effects on crop growth and yield. A continuous increase in global temperature, leading to warmer climatic conditions, is expected to further increase the severity and frequency of drought.
Methods: The experiments were carried out during 2018-2019 under laboratory conditions to study the effects of PEG-6000 on seedling growth in eight genotypes of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.).
Result: Our research work evaluated the effect of PEG-6000 induced drought stress on metabolite and enzymatic activity of eight genotypes of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) (PL-4, L-4147, L-4594, L-4596 belonging to microsperma subspecies and K-75, L-4076, DPL-15, DPL-62 belonging to macrosperma subspecies). Drought stress significantly increased metabolite content i.e., protein, proline and carbohydrate and enzyme activity i.e., acid phosphatase, invertase in drought tolerant genotypes (PL-4, L-4594, DPL-15 and DPL-62) and reduced amount of these metabolites and enzymes was observed in drought susceptible genotypes (L-4147, L-4596, K-75, L-4076).