Department of Plant Breeding, Haryana Agricultural University, Hissar
The drought resistance of 20 genotypes of Indian mustard was tested by chlorophyll stability index (CSI) method and their yields were recorded both under irrigated and rainfed conditions. A close agreement was observed between the trends of CSI and per cent reduction in yield in rainfed over irrigated conditions. In highly drought resistant group, the CSI values varied from 0.012 to 0.316, while per cent reduction in yield varied from 2.43 to 5.36. In moderately drought resistant group, the CSI values ranged from 0.426 to 0.810 while per cent reduction in yield ranged from 18.71 to 23.56. In drought susceptible group, the CSI values varied from 0.908 to 2.392 while per cent reduction varied from 32.37 to 40.07. The data suggest that this method could successfully be exploited for screening Indian mustard varieties for drought resistance.
