Reaction of wild species of the geneus Lens to drought

Summary Susceptibility to drought stress is a key factor in dry land lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) production in the Mediterranean region of West Asia and North Africa. This study examined the response to drought stress of 121 accessions representing all subspecies of the genus Lens; cultivated, and the wild L. culinaris ssp. orientalis (Boiss.) Ponert, L. culinaris ssp. odemensis (Ladiz.), L. nigricans M.B. Godr. ssp. nigricans Godr. and L. nigricans ssp. ervoides (Brign.) Ladiz. for their potential use in breeding for dry land conditions. Accessions were grown under two moisture regimes (dry land and dry land plus supplemental irrigation) at Breda, Syria during the 1990–91 and 1991–92 seasons. The cultivated lentil had markedly superior seed and straw production than did the wild Lens species. Time to flowering accounted for less than 10% of the variation in yield of wild accessions under rainfed conditions in the two seasons, showing that, in contrast to the cultivated germplasm, drought escape was relatively unimportant in wild lentil. Performance under drought in wild lentil, measured in terms of dry land seed yield or drought susceptibility index (S), was randomly distributed among collection locations with little relation to collection site aridity. Direct selection of wild lentil germplasm for biomass yield under dry conditions is of little value and an evaluation of wild accessions in hybrid combination is needed.