Evaluation of morphological and biochemical variations in pea under two widespread abiotic stresses

Abstract Pea is the third most widely grown leguminous vegetable crop in the world. The crop is fairly easy to grow but is salt and drought sensitive limiting its yield. The current study was, therefore, designed to explore the morphological and biochemical responses of pea under salt stress and water-deficit stress. For this purpose, three pea varieties namely Climax, Green grass and Meteor were subjected to different levels (5.4 mM (Control), 50 mM, 75 mM and 100 mM of NaCl) of salt stress. The water-deficit stress was administered by watering 100%, 75% and 50% of field capacity. Morphological parameters showed significant reduction under salt stress and water-deficit stress in all the three varieties. On the other hand, the highest relative water content in response to various levels of both the stresses was 38.3% which was significantly lower than the control treatment. Chlorophyll content index (CCI), though, declined significantly in all the three varieties but Climax showed 43.7 CCI at 100 mM salt treatment which was significantly higher than Green grass (25.9 CCI) and Meteor (35.9 CCI) at same treatment. Significant accumulation of proline content was observed under both the stresses where 100 g of fresh weight of Climax showed proline content as 0.043 mg against 100 mM salt and 0.040 mg against 50% water-deficit treatments. Similar results were record for water-deficit stress study indicating common response of both kinds of stresses. The current findings may help understand better the contrasting impacts of salt and water scarcity stress on pea crops, specifically focusing on the role of proline.