Variation of SPAD Chlorophyll Meter Readings (SCMR) in the Mini-Core Germplasm Collection of Chickpea

Kashiwagi, J and Krishnamurthy, L and Singh, S and Upadhyaya, H D (2006) Variation of SPAD Chlorophyll Meter Readings (SCMR) in the Mini-Core Germplasm Collection of Chickpea. Journal of SAT Agricultural Research, 2 (1). pp. 1-3.

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Abstract

Drought is one of the major causes of yield losses in chickpea (Cicer arietinum). A large portion of such losses can be avoided through crop improvement. Simple analytical models are often used to dissect out and to understand the effects of model parameters on the final yield. Passioura (1977) proposed one such model where yield is considered a function of transpiration, transpiration efficiency (TE) defined as crop biomass production per unit water transpired, and harvest index. Among these three components, genetic enhancement of TE has been taken up as a major research effort in crop improvement programs throughout the world (Bindu Madhava et al. 2003). Although TE is considered a highly useful trait, it was also categorized as a difficult one to screen. Therefore, it becomes necessary to identify surrogate traits that are closely associated with TE for rapid screening of a large number of genotypes. A direct close relationship of TE with SPAD Chlorophyll Meter Readings (SCMR) was reported in groundnut (Nageswara Rao et al. 2001; Bindu Madhava et al. 2003) and SCMR is a direct linear relationship through extracted leaf chlorophyll (Yadava 1986) and also related leaf nitrogen concentration (Kantety et al. 1996; Bullock and Anderson 1998). The advantages such as easy and rapid measurement, nondestructive method and light weight made SPAD meters the best choice for use in the trait-based groundnut breeding program to improve the drought tolerance of groundnut at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) (Serraj et al. 2004).The same strategy can be applied to chickpea, provided baseline information is available on genetic diversity of SCMR in chickpea. The chickpea mini-core collection has been chosen to collect such information as the number is manageable for initial exploratory efforts and it represents the diversity of the whole germplasm collection (Upadhyaya and Ortiz 2001), Thus, the main objective of this study was to document the extent of variation available for the SCMR readings in the mini-core germplasm of chickpea, and also to identify accessions with contrasting SCMR.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Subjects:	Mandate crops > Chickpea
Depositing User:	Library ICRISAT
Date Deposited:	15 Oct 2011 04:00
Last Modified:	15 Oct 2011 04:00
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/2532
Official URL:
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	UNSPECIFIED
Links:	Author

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