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IMPROVING YIELD PERFORMANCE OF LANDRACE WHEAT UNDER SALINITY STRESS USING ON-FARM SEED PRIMING

SAEED AKHTER ABRO^1*, ABDUL RAZAK MAHAR² AND AMEER AHMED MIRBAHAR³

Abstract: The low wheat yield in salt-affected soils is often attributed to low seed germination, emergence and poor seedling establishment. Seed priming technology has been found valuable but is not extensively used in salt affected areas. The priming experiment was conducted in farmer’s field having two salinity levels (ECe 8.01 dSm^-1 pH 8.10 and ECe 11.90 dSm^-1 pH 8.01 respectively) with five landrace genotypes i.e. SALU1a, SALU1b, SALU2, SALU3, SALU4 and a local commercial variety TJ-83. The priming treatments resulted significant increased germination percentage as well as induced earliness of germination, emergence, heading and maturity of all the genotypes at both salinity levels. The genotype SALU4 was observed having the highest germination percentage under priming while SALU2 was the lowest. Similarly, the number of days to emergence, heading and maturity decreased significantly in primed seeds at both salinity levels while genotype SALU4 was found earliest emerging, heading and maturing. The priming increased 1000-grain weight (g) significantly and genotype SALU1b was observed with highest 1000-grain yield.
 

¹Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan

²Department of Botany, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, Pakistan

³Plant Tissue Culture & Biotechnology Division, HEJ, Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi-Karachi, Pakistan.