Physiological Characterization of Banana Germplasm of North East India for Tolerance against Moisture Deficit

Background: Water deficit stress is a serious environmental constrain to banana productivity in north east (NE) India. A field experiment was conducted to appraise the performance of 29 banana germplasm of NE India under moisture deficit condition of Assam that naturally prevails due to deficit rainfall every year during November to January. Methods: Randomized block design with five replications was the experimental design used. Irrigation was not applied during the crop growing season. Various physio-chemical parameters were measured in the main crop on 7th and 9th months after planting (MAP) that coincided with November and January. Result: Significant variations were observed in leaf relative water content, leaf area plant-1, leaf area index, total chlorophyll content, leaf proline content, lipid peroxidation, hands bunch-1 and bunch weight amongst germplasm studied. During moisture deficit period, germplasm Barjahaji, Bhimkal, Athiya and Bogimonahar could maintained better values in the physio-chemical traits studied except lipid peroxidation. The germplasm that showed superior values in the physio-chemical traits and lower value for lipid peroxidation registered the higher bunch weight. Significant positive correlation of bunch weight with leaf area (0.42 and 0.45 respectively for 7th and 9th MAP) and relative leaf water content (0.38 respectively for both 7th and 9th MAP) and significant negative correlation with lipid peroxidation (-0.45 and -0.49 respectively for 7th and 9th MAP) were observed at 5 per cent level of significant. Significant strong positive correlation between leaf chlorophyll content and proline content in leaf (0.85) was observed at 9th MAP. Germplasm Barjahaji, Bhimkal, Bogimanohar and Athiya are considered physiologically more tolerant to moisture deficit which can be used for future breeding programs and the physio-chemical parameters viz., leaf area, chlorophyll content, relative leaf water content and proline content can be considered as physiological indices for drought tolerance.