Introduction of irrigation method and effective stress level for evaluation of drought tolerance of sugar beetgenotypes

Water scarcity is a major limiting factor for agriculture in all arid and semi-arid regions of the world.For identification genotypes drought tolerant, requires assessment of the stability of their yield underdeficit irrigation conditions. Therefore, the introduction of irrigation method and effective level ofdrought stress in evaluating genotypes for drought tolerance are entirely necessary. For this purpose,sugar yields of four sugar beet cultivar under eight irrigation treatments were investigated. The researchwas conducted on split plots in a randomized complete block design with four replications. Eightirrigation treatments consisted of three treatments of traditional irrigation after 80 (I1), 130 (I2), 180 (I3)mm evaporation from class A pan and also two treatments of trickle irrigation including irrigation after30 millimeter with 100% (I4), Irrigation after 30 millimeters with 50% (I5) Supply of water requirementof sugar beet and three drip irrigation treatments 80 (I6), 130 (I7 ), 180 (I8), millimeter evaporation fromclass A pan in main plots and four genotypes including 7112, BP Mashhad, BP Karaj and BP (I13 *A37.1) in sub plots. Drought tolerance based on sugar yield per hectare of genotypes and Drought StressIndex (DSI) were calculated in comparison to full irrigation. The results showed that the differencebetween genotypes and irrigation treatments was significant for sugar yield. The interaction betweengenotypes and irrigation treatments for DSI was significant. The decrease in sugar yield in sugar beetcultivars to reduced the amount of water treatment (30mm Tape irrigation 50%) was more severe than theirrigation interval treatments. Therefore, in order to evaluate and screen the genotypes drought tolerant,irrigation after 30 mm evaporation from class A pan with 50% of water requirement is introduced andrecommended as irrigation method and effective stress level for evaluating drought tolerance of sugarbeet genotypes.

Keywords:

Sugar beet , Drought stress index , Drop irrigation