Assessment of cold tolerance in chickpea accessions in North-Western Himalayas of Jammu and Kashmir, India

Cold stress is one of the important factors limiting chickpea production even in the countries with the high risk of drought/heat stress. This study was aimed to characterize a set of 30 chickpea accessions for cold tolerance and identify most promising cold tolerant accessions of Cicer species in the north western Himalayas of state Jammu and Kashmir, India. We analyzed chilling induced responses of 30 chickpea accessions under field and controlled conditions using phenotypic (field screening under cold stress) and physiological method (electrolyte leakage test), for chilling tolerance. Chickpea accessions were screened for cold tolerance using a rating scale of 1–9 and cell membrane stability under cold stress was tested through electrolyte leakage tests from the damaged leaves. Wild Cicer species Ortan-066 (C. echinospermum) was identified as the most cold tolerant source (showing least score for cold tolerance rating i.e., CTR= 2 and electrolyte leakage index of 11.1%).Whereas, three Cicer reticulatum species viz., Bari-2-072, Bari-3-106D, and Cudi-1-022 and two Cicer arietinum species viz., ICC 13090 and AGBL-G-170004 were found tolerant to cold with CTR=3. The identified accessions could be exploited in future breeding programs aimed at improving cold tolerance trait in modern chickpea varieties which are otherwise susceptible to cold.