I - --ii

germplasm was in the pre-flowering stage, whereas in the spring-sown trials the
plants were still seedlings. The stage of crop growth in the date of planting trial
varied from flowering to seedling, depending on the date of planting.
A 1-9 point scale was used for scoring the frost damage, where 1 = no visible
damage (highly resistant); 3 = only a few leaves were killed causing negligible
crop damage (resistant); 5 = part of the branches were killed causing some
damage to the crop (tolerant); 7 = a large proportion of branches and a few
plants were killed causing considerable damage (susceptible); 9 = all plants were
killed causing total loss of yield (highly susceptible).
Results of the valuation of 2062 kabuli germplasm accessions at the preflowering
stage and 31.4 accessions at the seedling stage are presented in Tab. 5. Three
conclusions can be drawn. First, the crop at the seedling stage was more resistant
to frost than at the preflowering stage; about 99% of the lines were resistant at
seedling stage. Second, at the preflowering stage only one line was rated as highly
resistant, 164 lines as resistant, 356 lines as tolerant and the remaining 1541 lines
as susceptible. Third, no line was completely killed, but the severe late frost
damage to 75% of the lines planted in winter, highlighted the need for incorporation
of late frost tolerance, in addition to cold tolerance and ascochyta blight
resistance in cnltivars for winter planting.
Table 5
Screening chickpea lines for resistance to frost at Tel Hadya, Syria, 1980-81.
Frost rating Pre-flowering stage Seedling stage
Scale No. of entries % of total No. of entries % of total
1 I 0.05 0 0.00
2 3 0.15 234 74.52
3 38 1.84 77 24.52
4 123 5.96 1 0.32
5 356 17.26 2 0.64
6 221 10.72 0 0.00
7 1320 64.01 0 0.00
8 0 0.00 0 0.00
9 0 0.00 0 0.00
Total 2062 100.00 314 100.00
The lines that were evaluated at both the seedling and pre-flowering stage,
showed little similarity in the ratings to frost tolerance at these two stages. Lines
rated 2 as seedlings, were rated anywhere between 3 to 7 at the pre-flowering
173