IDENTIFICATION OF GROUNDNUT (ARACHIS HYPOGAEA L.) CULTIVARS TOLERANT OF SOIL SALINITY

Field screening of 83 groundnut cultivars was undertaken for two seasons to assess their tolerance of salinity based on plant mortality and yield attributes. During the dry season, soil salinity of 4 dS m-1 at sowing and 6-7 dS m-1 21-98 days after sowing (DAS) caused high mortality without seed formation in any cultivars, however, at salinity 4.5 dS m-1 during sowing and 3.5-3.0 dS m-1 15-80 DAS during wet season, 61 cultivars produced seed. The cultivars 'VRI 3', 'UF 70-103', 'TKG 19A', 'S 206', 'Tirupati 4', 'M 522', 'Punjab 1', 'BG 3', 'Somnath' and 'ICGV 86590', with high plant stand during both the seasons and over 75 g m-2 seed yield during wet season, were identified salinity tolerant. However, 15 cultivars with more than 50 g m-2 seed yield were moderately tolerant and 28 cultivars with less than 25 g m-2 seed yield were sensitive to salinity.