Identifying new sources of tolerance to post emergence herbicides in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is highly infested by different types of seasonal weeds that leads to significant yield losses. In recent years, input costs have also increased more rapidly than crop prices. At present there is no chickpea cultivar possessing tolerance to post-emergence herbicides and manual weeding remains a major weed control strategy, which is time consuming and expensive. In the present investigation, 288 chickpea genotypes were screened against two post-emergence herbicides, imazethapyr (Pursuit) and carfentrazone-ethyl (Affinity) for consecutive two years to identify tolerant genotypes. Large genetic variations for tolerance to both the herbicides were observed. For imazethapyr herbicide, tolerance score of genotypes ranged from 1.25 to 5.00, whereas for carfentrazone-ethyl, it ranged from 1.5 to 5.00. In general, genotypes showed more sensitivity to carfentrazone-ethyl at early growth stage but at late growth stage they showed more sensitivity to imazethapyr. On the average of two years, 30 and 12 genotypes were found tolerant, whereas 20 and 56 genotypes were found highly sensitive against imazethapyr and carfentrazoneethyl, respectively. Out of 288 genotypes screened, only three genotypes, GLK 10103, NDG 11-24 and GL 22044, were found to be tolerant to both the herbicides. These genotypes can be tested for their yield levels for the release as a variety or can be included in chickpea breeding programme for the development of post-emergence herbicide tolerant varieties.