Yield and Physiological Responses of Chickpea Cultivars to Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Inoculation under Drought Stress

Abstract Terminal drought is a principal constraint on chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) productivity in rainfed tracts, where the crop matures on progressively receding residual soil moisture. A field investigation was conducted during the Rabi seasons of 2022-23 and 2023-24 at Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV), Akola, Maharashtra, India, to evaluate the yield and physio-biochemical responses of seven chickpea genotypes (PDKV Kanak, PDKV Kanchan, PKV Kabuli-2, PKV Kabuli-4, JAKI-9218, Chandrapur Chanoli and Gulak-1) to moisture stress following inoculation with vesicular arbuscular mycorrhiza (VAM). The experiment followed a Factorial Randomized Block Design with two water regimes (irrigated and moisture stress) and seven varieties. Moisture stress significantly reduced seed yield (by 10.3–20.2%), straw yield (by 9.8–18.0%), total chlorophyll content at 90 days after sowing (DAS; by 13.8–20.2%) and relative water content at 90 DAS (by 15.3–25.7%), while significantly increasing proline accumulation (by 132.7-189.9% at pod filling) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity (by 31.9–86.7%), relative to irrigated conditions, in the pooled analysis of both seasons. JAKI-9218 consistently showed the smallest relative decline in yield, chlorophyll content and relative water content, together with the greatest proline accumulation and SOD induction under stress, identifying it as the most drought-tolerant genotype, followed by PDKV Kanak and PDKV Kanchan; Gulak-1 was the most drought-susceptible. These results indicate that VAM inoculation, combined with inherently tolerant genotypes such as JAKI-9218, can help sustain chickpea productivity under terminal drought through improved water relations, retained photosynthetic pigments, and enhanced osmotic and antioxidative adjustment, offering promising material for drought-tolerance breeding in chickpea.