en تنش دما thermal stress پژوهشي Research <a name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a name="OLE_LINK1"><strong>Lack of chickpea cultivars tolerant to extreme freezing is a limiting factor for autumn planting of this crop in cold areas. In this study, 58 Kabuli-type chickpea genotypes and a control (an international sensitive genotype) were planted in pots and first exposed to -10&deg;C and then to -15&deg;C after being acclimated in natural conditions. No destructive effect of -10&deg;C was observed in plants. So, acclimation was repeated and plants were transferred to -15&deg;C. Survival percentage was measured after three-weeks recovery period. In continue, 19 genotypes with higher survival percentage along with the control were exposed to temperatures of -16, -18 and -20&deg;C after they were acclimated in controlled conditions. Experiments were arranged as Completely Randomized Design with three replications. Results indicated that seven genotypes had survival percentage more than 80%, 24 genotypes more than 25% and 25 genotypes could not survive in -15&deg;C. MCC803 had the highest and MCC808 and MCC510 the lowest survival percentage. All the genotypes were killed in -18 and -20&deg;C. Among 19 studied genotypes, eight were able to tolerate -16&deg;C. Among factors affecting cold tolerance such as soluble carbohydrates, proline, total phenol, photosynthetic pigments, DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging activity and malondialdehyde, soluble carbohydrates showed significant positive correlation with chickpea survival percentage.</strong></a> <strong>Generally, among the studied genotypes four genotypes (MCC53, MCC770, MCC776, MCC809 and MCC815) are recommended as promising genotypes for freezing tolerance.</strong><br> &nbsp; Acclimation, Autumn planting, Metabolites, Soluble carbohydrates, survival 1 10 http://jispp.iut.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-36-6&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Jafar Nabati jafarnabati@ferdowsi.um.ac.ir Yes Assistant Professor, Research Center for Plant Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, IRAN Ahmad Nezami nezami@um.ac.ir No Professor, Faculty of Agriculture and Research Center for Plant Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, IRAN Mohammad Kafi m.kafi@um.ac.ir No Professor, Faculty of Agriculture and Research Center for Plant Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, IRAN Elaheh Boroumand Rezazadeh elaheh.boroumand@mail.um.ac.ir No Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, IRAN