Morpho-Physiological Characterization Related to Drought Tolerance of Common Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.) Genotypes

Drought is one of the limiting factor in common bean, development of common bean varieties that adapted to drought situations is the main focus for improving food crops. In this study, 25 genotypes of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were grown under drought stress and non-stress conditions. The field work was conducted at Melkassa Agricultural Research Center during the off-season that laid on a triple lattice design with three replications. A number of drought indicator characteristics were measured from germination to harvesting stages. The stressed genotypes showed a significant reduction in all quantitative characters such as chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance, days to 50% flowering, days to 90% maturity, seeds per pod, pods per plant, 100-seed weight, pod harvest index and harvest index. Harvest index recorded the highest heritability (67.01) and the highest genetic advance (22.57%) under stress condition, respectively. The study confirmed the existence of variation among common bean genotypes when subjected to drought stress and such variation could be utilized in the improvement of common bean genotypes under drought environmental conditions.