Screening for drought tolerance in mungbean.

Field experiments were conducted to screen the mungbean genotypes based on root characters and root penetration ability. Observations on root and shoot characters viz., root length, shoot length, number of roots, root diameter, fresh weight of root, fresh weight of shoot, dry weight of root, dry weight of shoot, root volume, growth and yield parameters viz., plant height, number of branches, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, seed yield per plant were recorded. Based on the root characters, the genotypes HUM 1, VMGG 67, VMGG 82, VMGG 83 and VMGG 90 were found to be promising. They also performed well in the field experiments. These genotypes were crossed with high yielding varieties like VBN 1, VBN 2, VBN 3 and KM 2 to get Ft Among the 20 crosses obtained, three crosses VMGG-83/VBN 2, VMGG-90/VBN 3 and VMGG-83/VBN 1 were found to perform well in F2 and they will be forwarded to next generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]