Salt tolerance of thirteen rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties at germination and seedling stages

The present experiment was conducted to study salinity tolerance of nine local rice varieties obtained from Sundarbans Region (Coastal Alluvial Region-saline prone areas) of West Bengal, including two salinity tolerant and two susceptible check varieties from Hyderabad. These varieties were tested at different levels of salinity (0.0 M, 0.1 M with EC 9, 0.15 M with EC 13.6 and 0.2 M with EC 18.7 dS/m) using a new semi-hydroponic technique. The results revealed that increasing salinity decreased emergence and seedling growth. The results also showed that large variability was present for emergence and seedling growth of different rice varieties to different NaCl concentrations. The technique is capable of distinguishing among rice varieties for salinity tolerance at the seedling stage. Among the varieties screened Marrirsail, Malabati, Sabita Patnai and Doodheswar were found highly tolerant at EC 18. Tolerant varieties showed high seedling emergence (%), seedling vigour index, root/shoot ratio at 0.15 M NaCl (EC 13.6 dS/m) and 0.2 M NaCl (EC 18 dS/m). Most of the varieties performed well up to 0.1 M NaCl (EC 9 dS/m).