Kb. Hebbar et al., A COMPARATIVE-ASSESSMENT OF WATER-USE EFFICIENCY IN GROUNDNUT (ARACHIS-HYPOGAEA) GROWN IN CONTAINERS AND IN THE FIELD UNDER WATER-LIMITED CONDITIONS, Journal of Agricultural Science, 122, 1994, pp. 429-434
Water use efficiency (WUE) was measured on fourteen genotypes of groun
dnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) grown in containers under adequately irriga
ted and water-limited conditions. The genotypes used similar amounts o
f water but produced different quantities of dry matter. WUE accounted
for > 92 % of the variation in dry matter production under both irrig
ated and water-limited conditions. There was a significant increase in
WUE under water-limited conditions. Four genotypes selected from the
container experiment as having either a high or a low WUE under non-li
mited or limited water input conditions were further tested under prol
onged water deficit conditions in a field experiment. WUE varied signi
ficantly between genotypes and there was a positive correlation betwee
n WUE and the quantity of dry matter produced by the genotypes. The re
sults suggested that, in three out of four genotypes, the WUE measured
in the container experiment was positively correlated with the WUE es
timated under field conditions.