الفهرس 
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Abstract
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is among the first leguminous plants with seeds domesticated by man and is cultivated in a large area in the arid and semi-arid zones: Americas, Mediterranean basin, East Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia (Jayashree et al., 2005). Chickpea seeds have a protein content of 20.6%, a fat content of 2.2%, and a carbohydrate content of 61.2% (Rasool et al., 2013). In Egypt, people use chickpeas as a source of protein in their diets as well as in developing countries. The extreme increase in the population in Egypt needs to increase the total yield of legume crops in order to overcome the lack of protein through increase of chickpea area of cultivation in the newly reclaimed lands, especially under drought and saline conditions (Kandil, 2012). Chickpea is classified as a low water-demanding crop with satisfactory adaptation in dry areas, with crop establishment, however, being largely dependent on seed germination potential under low water availability (Arjenaki et al., 2011; Koskosidis et al., 2020). Coles and Eslamian (2017) defined the term “drought” to be the lack or scarcity of anything or a prolonged absence of something specified, but historically it has been used to determine a prolonged period of dryness or low rainfall. Nowadays, water scarcity is the most serious problem facing Egypt in addition to the problems caused by pollution of water resources by various forms of contaminants (Gad, 2017). Middle East is the most severe water scarcity region in the world (El Kharraz et al., 2012). Stress is defined as an external factor that causes a deleterious effect on plants by limiting their development and survivorship. Drought, like salinity, plays an important role not only in determining germination rates but also influences seedling development (Van den Berg and Zeng, 2006). With increasing drought stress, water availability decreases, changing the percentage of germination and growth of seedlings. Establishment of seedlings is the most critical life stage in dry environments, and a lack of soil moisture is often a major reason for seedling mortality (Schutz et al., 2002). Drought stress adversely affects crops throughout their lifecycle and causes yield losses, the extent of which varies significantly depending on the duration and intensity of the stress, the genetic background, and the developmental stage. The drought conditions reduced the yield and produced biomass of the chickpea (Leport et al., 2006) and decreased the relative water content (Chandrasekar et al., 2000). Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is widely used to induce water stress. It is a non-ionic water polymer, which is not expected to penetrate into plant tissue rapidly (Sayar et al., 2010; Soleymani and Shahrajabian, 2018).