Morpho-Physiological Response of Selected Mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) Sri Lankan Genotypes to Drought Stress

Abstract

Mung bean, member of Fabaceae is grown in most tropical and sub-tropical regions of world and have significant role in nutrition in developing countries. Irrigation and water resources are the most critical constrain in most tropics and sub-tropics thus our study aimed to investigate resistance of widely cultivated mung bean genotypes of Sri Lanka ARI, MI -5and MI-6 for its morpho-physiological responses to drought stress during vegetative and reproductive growth stages. A greenhouse pot experiment was carried out under randomized complete block design with five replications and relative water content of leaves, soil moisture content, plant dry matter, leaf area and grain yield and yield components were measured. Results showed that there was no significant difference between control and drought stress during reproductive growth stage on yield and yield components, but drought stress during vegetative growth stage decreased yield and yield components significantly.The genotype and growth stage both had a significant effect on leaf area and plant dry weight at vegetative stage. However, results obtained showed that difference between each three treatments on relative water content (RWC) and soil moisture content (SMC) was significant.