Screening of maize hybrids against salt stress under hydroponic culture

Maize is one of the most salt-sensitive field crop among cereals which is adversely affected by salt stress. With the objective to sort out the contrasting genotypes, eight maize hybrids (FH-988, 20R52, FH-1046, Rustam-1, FH-949, Pioneer 30Y87, FH-1137 and Rustam-12) were raised in saline (100 mM NaCl) and non-saline (4 mM NaCl) hydroponics culture. The layout of the experiment was Completely Randomized Design (CRD) in factorial fashion with three replications. The maize hybrid FH-988 was evaluated as comparatively salt tolerant hybrid as it has produced the maximum shoot dry weight (7.66 g) and retained higher K+/Na+ ratio (0.87), while FH-1137 was categorized as comparatively salt sensitive genotypes because of minimum shoot dry weight (4.33 g) and retained minimum K+/Na+ ratio (0.44).