MORPHO-BIOCHEMICAL EVALUATION OF Brassica rapa SUB-SPECIES FOR SALT TOLERANCE

Salt stress is one of the key abiotic stresses that affect both the qualitative and quantitative characters of many Brassica rapa sub-species by disturbing its normal morpho-biochemical processes. Therefore, the present research work was designed to study the effect of different NaCl events (0, 50,100 and 150 mmol) on morphological and biochemical characters and to screen salt tolerant genotypes among brown, yellow and toria types of B. rapa sub-species. The plants were grown in test tubes with addition of four level of NaCl (0, 50,100 and 150 mmol). The effect of salinity on shoot and root length, shoot/root fresh and dry weight, relative water content (RWC), proline and chlorophyll a, b, a+b contents was recorded after 4 weeks of sowing. The genotype 22861 (brown type) showed excellent morphological and biochemical performance at all stress levels followed by Toria-Sathi and Toria-A respectively as compared to Check variety TS-1. The genotype 26158 (yellow type) gave very poor performance and retard growth. The % RWC values and chlorophyll a, b and a+b contents were decreased several folds with the increase of salt concentration. While, the proline contents was increased with raising of salt stress. The brown and toria types showed maximum tolerance to salt stress at early germination stages as compare to yellows one. The present study will serve as model to develop quick salt tolerant genotypes among different plant sub-species against salt stress.