Physiological evaluation of Brassica Species differing in drought tolerance

An investigation was conducted to assess drought-tolerance in two Brassica species namely Brassica napus with varieties Sheetal and Neelam and Brassica carinata with varieties Jayanti and Kiran on the basis of inherent stress tolerance characters viz. plant dry weight (g/plant), root length (cm), leaf area (cm2/plant), relative water content (%),harvest index(%) and drought susceptibility index (DSI).The experiment was designed by imposing water stress at branch initiation stage (45 DAS), floral bud initiation (60 DAS) and pod formation stage (100 DAS). All the treatments affected the performance of the varieties of Brassica napus and Brassica carinata. Variety Jayanti of Brassica carinata and variety Sheetal of Brassica napus exhibited significantly long root length compared to unstressed plants and less reduction in dry weight, leaf area, relative water content and harvest index. However, root length of variety Jayanti of Brassica carinata and Sheetal of Brassica napus exceeds that of unstressed plants in all the treatments of stress. It was observed that relatively higher amount of reduction in harvest index in Kiran (50 %) and Neelam (75 %) was observed however Jayanti and Sheetal are with minimum DSI.