Assessment of Freezing Tolerance in Lentil Genotypes (Lens culinaris) by Electrolyte Leakage Index

Lentil (Lens culinaris. Medik) is one of the major cool season pulse crops which could suffer damage under severe cold. Some physiological parameters such as electrolyte leakage (EL) have been used to assess the response of crops to cold conditions. in order to evaluate the possibility of using the EL index for assessing the freezing tolerance of lentil genotypes, a factorial experiment carried out with seven lentil genotypes (MLC7, MLC60, MLC185, MLC225, MLC357, Ghazvin and Robat) and nine freezing temperatures (0, -3, -6, -9, -12, -15, -18, -21 and -24oC) on the base of completely randomized design with three replications on the fall 2008. Results showed that, in all genotypes, EL was increased with decreasing the temperature, and there was significantly difference (