MORPHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF GROUNDNUT (ARACHIS HYPOGAEA L.) GENOTYPES FOR IRON DEFICIENCY TOLERANCE

Abstract

Iron deficiency is one of the major yield limiting factors in groundnut. The soils of Pothwar (90% of groundnut production area in Pakistan) are calcareous in nature, thus groundnut is exposed to Fe deficiency. Seeds of 20 varieties/ advance breeding lines of groundnut were collected to evaluate Fe deficiency responses. Seeds were germinated in pots with 1:1 soil to sand ratio with added recommended NPK fertilizer. Fe-EDTA (0.1mmol/L) was supplemented as foliar spray to control plants, however, no additional Fe was applied to Fe deficient plants. Physiological parameters such as chlorophyll content, active and total Fe concentrations were recorded for each genotype under Fe deficient and Fe sufficient conditions. Morphological parameters including pods per plant, pod weight per plant, seeds per plant and seed weight per plant were recorded at harvesting. Genotypes were ranked by multivariate cluster analysis. Data showed that BARI-2000 and Chakori were among the Fe stress tolerant genotypes while Golden and Lisn were among the Fe deficiency intolerant genotypes. Relative values for SPAD values ranged from 60.50% in 2KCG020 to 87. 8% in BARI-2000. Total Fe concentration was 48.8%in Lisn and 66.5% in BARI-2000. Relative value of biomass produced by Chakori and Golden was 85.5% and 66.3%, respectively. The genotypes ranked best on the basis of morpho-physiological parameters will be helpful for making recommendations to groundnut farmers of the Pothwar region.