Abstract

Drought stress, which has a great impact on agricultural and forestry production and often causes yield reduction, is one of the most important agricultural research topics, therefore, in order to assess drought tolerance in lentil cultivars Ardabil region, a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications in the 2010 Farm Agricultural Research Station University, Ardebil, was performed. Factors used included two levels of planting conditions (irrigation and non-irrigation) and five lentil cultivars. Results showed that, yield loss of the ILL 1180 under stress was about 23.31% more than normal conditions. This value for the ILL 1324 ranged approximately 35.51%. Also, ILL 1180 showed the lowest tolerance against stress and stress susceptibility index and the highest mean productivity, geometric mean productivity and stress tolerance index indices. ILL 1324 possessed the highest TOL (tolerance index), SSI (stress susceptibility index) and STI (stress tolerance index) and ILL 1237 showed the lowest MP (mean productivity) and GMP (geometric mean productivity) indices, and as such, ILL 1180 and ILL 1251 were the superior cultivars under both conditions in terms of high yield and tolerance against drought stress. ILL 1237 was distinguished as the most susceptible cultivar as well.

Key words: Drought stress, cultivar, yield, lentil.