A new phenotyping technique for screening for drought tolerance in lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.)

Screening for drought tolerance is severely handicapped by the lack of a simple and reliable phenotyping technique. The objective of this study was to develop a new screening technique based on seedling survivability, drought tolerance score, root and shoot length, and fresh and dry weight of roots and shoots of lentil plants exposed to drought under hydroponic conditions. Its effectiveness was compared with two soil culture techniques. The hydroponic technique involved removing 15-day-old seedlings of 80 genotypes from the nutrient solution and exposing them to air for 5 h daily for 6 days. Three genotypes received from ICARDA, ‘ILL-10700’, ‘ILL-10823’ and ‘FLIP-96-51’, showed maximum seedling survivability and minimum reduction in the growth parameters with a drought score of 0.0–0.2 indicating higher tolerance to drought stress, while Indian genotypes ‘JL-3’, ‘E-153’ and ‘VL-507’ showed no seedling survivability and maximum reduction in growth parameters with a drought score of 4.0 indicating low drought tolerance. The results suggest that this new phenotyping technique is effective, rapid and easy for screening a large number of genotypes.