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Drought stress is one of the major constraints that greatly limit the productivity of wheat worldwide. Deciphering the molecular basis of drought tolerance can help in combating drought stress. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to determine genetic diversity among six drought tolerant and six drought sensitive varieties of wheat. Out of 15 ISSR primers used, 14 primers gave reproducible banding pattern. These 14 primers generated 191 amplified products out of which 93 were polymorphic. Overall size of PCR amplified products ranged between 400 bp and 4000 bp. Based on similarity matrix data, the value of similarity coefficient ranged from 0.70 to 0.94. Cluster analysis discriminated the wheat varieties into two major clusters, one consisted of drought tolerant varieties and the other had all drought sensitive varieties. The present study showed that ISSR markers provide a valuable tool to study genetic variability in wheat varieties.

Drought is one of the most devastating abiotic stresses, spreading around the world and limiting the productivity of chickpea. The present study was carried out to select the high yielding progeny lines of chickpea to combat terminal drought stress conditions. Parameters that were measured included phenological traits; yield and yield- related traits viz. number of branches plant-1, number of pods plant-1, number of seeds pod-1, 100 seed weight and biological yield in F3 progeny lines of cross HC-1 × RSG 931 along with parental chickpea genotypes. The data was analyzed using statistical program and all yield-related traits were found to be positively correlated with seed yield. Four progeny lines viz. P9, P15, P17 and P18 had higher seed yield plant-1 than drought tolerant parental chickpea genotype, RSG 931 under terminal drought stress conditions. These superior progeny lines could be incorporated in chickpea breeding program to increase yield under terminal drought stress.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is mainly grown in rainfed area and terminal drought stress is one of the major constrain to chickpea production in India. The present study was undertaken to identify the traits of significance that contribute towards terminal drought tolerance in chickpea. The two chickpea genotypes HC-1 (drought sensitive) and RSG 931 (drought tolerant) and F3 progeny lines of cross HC-1 × RSG 931 were grown in drought microplots and data was recorded for root and physiological traits under terminal drought stress. The results showed wide variation for root and physiological traits in HC-1, RSG 931 and F3 progeny lines of chickpea. Significant positive correlation was recorded between seed yield and water potential; seed yield and RWC; seed yield and quantum yield of photosystem II,,whereas root traits were not positively correlated with seed yield. The results of present study showed that physiological parameters could be reliable tools for screening of terminal drought tolerance in chickpea.