The study of drought tolerance of lentil (lens culinaris Medik) in seedling growth stages

In order to identify the degree of drought tolerance of lentil (lens culinaris Medik) cultivars in seedling growth stages, five varieties were tested in the form of completely randomized design with 3 replications in planthouse and Agronomy and plant breeding laboratory of Zanjan University, Iran in 2004. Results showed that there were significant differences between cultivars for all characters. Genotype Cabralia inta, had the highest amount of shoot length, root length and dry weight of seedling. We found that Cabralia inta cultivar has the high percent of germination stress index with 40.1 %. Simple correlation analysis showed that there is positive and significant relationship between GSI and shoot length, root length and dry weight of seedling. Totally, Cabralia inta cultivar with highest growth parameters and germination stress index can grow better in arid and semiarid climate.