evaluation of drought tolerance in cold hardy lentils (lens culinaris medik.) at germination stage

abstract germination and emergence of cold tolerant lentil genotypes sometimes experiences low temperatures and variable rainfalls in the fall planting. this study was conducted to evaluate the effects of drought stress on germination stage of lentil genotypes. experiment was carried out with 18 lentil genotypes under five levels of water potential (0 , -0.4 , -0.8 , -1.2 , -1.6 mpa) using peg solutions with a 5×18 factorial experiment based on a compeletly randomaized design with three replications of 25 seeds at 13˚c. germination and normal seedling percentage, germination rate, radicle and plumule length were measured. germination averaged over genotypes was 88% at 0 mpa whereas it was 18% at -1.6 mpa. mlc20, with 79%, mlc138 and mlc25 with 74% showed the highest germination, whereas mlc245 and mlc7 with 45% and 47% percent had the lowest germination percentage, respectively. the effects of water potentials × genotypes on all traits were significantly different (p<0.05). at 0 mpa water potential 10 genotypes had higher than 90% germination, whereas in -1.6 mpa 12 genotypes had less than 30% and even at six genotypes there was not germination. ranking of genotypes for evaluated traits indicated mlc20 and mlc7 as a tolerant and a sensitive genotype to drought at germination stage, respectively.