study of lentil (lens culinaris medik.) seed size on germination and seedling properties in drought stress condition

poor establishment of seedling due to both drought and lack of water is one of the most important problems in arid and semiarid regions such as iran. so, in order to evaluate the effect of lentil seed size on germination and seedling growth properties affected by drought stress, a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement and 3 replications conducted using two lentils genotypes (robatt and gachsaran), two small and large seed sizes (34.8 and 59 mg in robatt and 41.5 and 69 mg in gachsaran per seed), respectively and five drought levels (0, -2, -6, -12 and -18 bar) in 1387. results showed that all of studied traits (r/h ratio except) were affected by seed size, genotype and drought, significantly. small seeds sizes had highest percent and rate germination, radicle and hypocotyle length and weight. but radicle/hypocotyle ratio of large seed was higher. robatt was performance for total trait significantly. with increasing in drought intensity, trait values had significant decreases. also double and triple interactions between factors were significant. overall it seems that small seed size show more tolerance to drought and genotype with small seed size are performance in this condition.