I - --ii

altitude of 923 m in the Beqa'a valley of Lebanon. The high plateau site was
located at Hymana (39'50'N, 32°40'E) at an altitude of 1055 m in Turkey.
Evaluation at Tel Hcdya
A total of 3000 kabuli accessions from the germplasm collection were planted in
November 1978. Each accession was sown in an unreplicated 5-m row, with the
rows spaced 60 cm apart. The local chickpea landrace in Syria (ILC 1929) was
sown after every two test entries. Plant emergence was r.corded before the onset
of severe winter conditions in the third week of November, when the minimum
air temperatures fell below zero (-I to -2°C) on five consecutive nights. The
lowest air temperatures during December 1978, January and February 1979
were, respectively, 1, -1, and 2.4*C and the monthly average minimum air
temperatures were 5, 4 and 6C, respectively.
At the end of the suvere winter period, the lines were scored for cold tolerance
in early February on a 1to 3 scale, where 1 = free from cold injury; 2 = leases of
a few plants within each entry were partially affected showing epinasty and
restriction of leaf expansion (these plants recovered completely afterwards);
3 = part or whole plant damaged with no possiblity of recovery. The results are
presented in Tab. 1.Forty percent of the entries showed no cold injury, and 60%
suffered a temporary effect of cold with no mortality.
Table I
Screening chickpea lines for tolerance to cold at Tel Hadya, Syria, during 1978-79.
Rating No. of entries % of entries
1 1247 41.57
2
3
1753
0
Total 3000 100
58.43
0.00
Evaluation at Terbol
A total of 3182 kabuli accessions from the germplasm collection were sown in
November 1978, in the same layout as at Tel Hadya. The local chickpea landrace
(ILC 1930) was sown after every nine test entries. Plant emergence was recorded
before the onset of the severe winter. The absolute minimum air temperatures
during November and December 1978 and January, February and March 1979
were -6.8, -2.8, -4.0, -4.0, and 4.8°C, respectively. The mean monthly minimum
air temperatures were 0.17, 3.08, 0.18, 1.63 and 2.26 0 C, respectively. The
crop was covered with snow during December and January for several days.
169