Crop drought tolerance issue is one of the most challenging objectives of agronomy and plant breeding investigations. Developing an efficient screening technology and identifying the most important traits contributing toward drought tolerance are major steps in this direction. To go in this quest, an experiment was conducted with seven Kabuli chickpea genotypes were grown under three humidity regimes including (i) rain-fed condition, (ii) full irrigation and (iii) rain-fed condition with two supplement irrigations during flowering and grain filling stages. Analysis of variance indicated significant differences among seven chickpea genotypes for the measured traits. Results revealed that plant height, primary and secondary branches, chlorophyll content, day to maturity, grain yield and yield components were significant. However, there was no significant difference for number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, 100-grain weight, grain yield per unit area and grain filling rate. Based on the YP drought tolerance index, genotypes FLIP 03-64C and Azad had the highest yield under non-stressed condition, while genotypes FLIP 98-106C and Azad displayed the highest yield under stressed condition. The relationships among drought tolerance indices are graphically displayed in a plot of two first principal components analysis. Genotypes FLIP 98-106C and Azad are good candidates for commercial recommendation to farmers in both rain-fed and irrigated conditions. Principal component analysis indicated that relative water content, photochemical efficiency of photosystem II, and stomatal conductance were the physiological traits with greater contribution toward drought tolerance and should be evaluated ahead of many other traits in making selections for drought-tolerant chickpea genotypes
