Kabuli and desi chickpeas differ in their requirement for reproductive duration

• Well-adapted Kabulis were less productive than the desis.
• Compared to desis, kabulis require a longer reproductive duration for best adaptation.
• Under terminal drought, kabulis are relatively poor in canopy temperature regulation.
• Kabulis had more and wider xylem vessels that might offer less resistance to water flow.

There are two distinct types of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), called desi and kabuli, that differ in size, color and surface of seeds, flower color and morphology. Both these types are divergent geographically and broadly vary in their adaptation, nutrition, biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. In a field evaluation of large number of well-adapted F4 progenies of both desi and kabuli had shown that the grain yields were lower in all the kabulis as a consequence of lesser total shoot biomass production and lesser harvest index. The vegetative duration of kabulis was shorter and the reproductive duration extensively longer explaining why the shoot biomass productivity is low. In another field trial with a subset of the minicore chickpea germplasm, the canopy temperature depression of the kabulis were observed to be relatively lower with a low variation among the accessions and also the grain yields were lower explaining the poor adaptation of kabulis to terminal drought under Patancheru. The anatomy of roots had shown that there were quick loss of cortical layers and the presence of greater number of wider xylem vessels in kabulis relative to desis and that the kabulis were equipped to use more water with less resistance to water flow. More desi × kabuli introgressions are suggested for improving the adaptability and yield stability of kabulis under peninsular Indian environments.