Water Stress Microenvironment study in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Pulses are recognized as an integral part of vegetarian Indian diet. Among the pulses chickpea plays leading role in Indian cropping system. It suffers from water stress during its life cycle. In the changing climatic scenario the water is one of the most important scarce resource. The challenge is to manage water for producing more food from same or even less amount of water. While irrigation frequency plays a key role in maximizing water use efficiency. Quantification of seasonal evapotranspiration during cropping period through field level water balance study is the key factor towards efficient water management. Climatic factors like radiation, temperature and wind speed are very much critical in regulating transfer of water in soil-plant-water continuum. Further the moisture stress has great influence on micro-environment of the crop stand. The experiment on moisture stress of the chickpea could be effectively monitored by using temperature based indices which has great potential for scientific study of crop water stress.