PJB-2022-1542
Evaluation and identification of salt tolerant wheat through in vitro salinity induction in seeds
Rao Waqar Ahmad Khan, Faisal Saeed Awan and Rana Khalid Iqbal
Abstract
Salinity is one of the major growth and yield limiting factor in crop production. Wheat being staple food loses its yield potential when grown in saline soils, however, this problem can be managed by identification and growing the salt tolerant genotypes. Seed is a primitive part which when exposed to salinity gets problem in germination. Current study was planned to investigate seed germination indicators for early selection of salinity tolerant wheat genotypes. Three salinity levels along with one control i.e., 0 mM, 50 mM, 100 mM and 150 mM were used to treat 125 genotypes sown in complete randomized design in replicates. All the genotypes were found significant for germination speed index (GSI), time required for germination of 50% seeds (T50), mean germination time (MGT), mean germination rate (MGR), variance of germination time (VGT), coefficient of variation of germination time (CVt), germination speed coefficient (CVG), and non-significant for final germination percentage (FGP), time required for germination of 90% (T90), germination synchrony (Sync) and uncertainty (Unc). Salinity treatments were found to be significant for all seed germination indicators except uncertainty (Unc). FGP had positive correlation with GSI, MGT, T50, T90, Sync and Unc, and negative correlation with CVG, MGR and CVt. By contrast, MGR showed negative correlation with all indicators except CVt. Moreover, MGT was found positive correlated with FGP, GSI, T50, T90, VGT and Uni, however, negative correlation was observed with CVG, MGR, CVt and Sync. Based on the salt tolerant index (STI), our results categorize wheat genotypes into tolerant (11 genotypes), moderate tolerant (38 genotypes), moderate sensitive (48 genotypes) and sensitive (28 genotypes). Overall, these findings reveal important parameters to select salinity tolerant plants at germination stage which could help in early identification of salt-tolerance genotypes In vitro
To Cite this article:
Waqar, R., A. Khan, F.S. Awan and R.K. Iqbal. 2022. Evaluation and identification of salt tolerant wheat through in vitro salinity induction in seeds. Pak. J. Bot., 54(6): DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30848/PJB2022-6(8)
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