Weed control is the most important constraint of autumn-sown chickpea production. Field experiments were conducted at three sites to evaluate the yield response of autumn-sown rainfed chickpea and weed control with PRE pendimethalin, POST pyridate, PRE isoxaflutole, preemergence (PRE) and postemergence (POST) of imazethapyr through hand-weeded, untreated and weed free checks. The results showed that pyridate was the safest option for weed control in chickpea. The highest grain yield of chickpea was obtained with application of pyridate followed by isoxaflutolein three sites. Imazethapyr and metribuzin caused higher visual injuries than the other treatments. Furthermore, the applications of pyridate, isoxaflutole, metribuzin, and pendimethalin, as well as PRE and POST imazethapyr were found to reduce the total weed densities (averaged for three locations) by as much as 76, 75, 75.4, 43, 64, and 64.5% within 30 days after treatments, respectively.

In order to evaluate morphological and physiological traits related to drought tolerance and to determine the best criteria for screening and identification of drought-tolerant genotypes, we grew two tolerant genotypes (MCC392, MCC877) and two sensitive genotypes (MCC68, MCC448) of chickpea under drought stress (25% field capacity) and control (100% field capacity) conditions and assessed the effect of drought stress on growth, water relations, photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence and chlorophyll content in the seedling, early flowering and podding stages. Drought stress significantly decreased shoot dry weight, CO2 assimilation rate (A), transpiration rate (E), and Psii photochemical efficiency (Fv/Fm) in all genotypes. In the seedling and podding stages, Psii photochemical efficiency was higher in tolerant genotypes than in sensitive genotypes under drought stress. Water use efficiency (WUE) and CO2 assimilation rate were also higher in tolerant than in sensitive genotypes in all investigated stages under drought stress. Our results indicated that water use efficiency, A and Fv/Fm can be useful markers in studies of tolerance to drought stress and in screening adapted cultivars of chickpea under drought stress.