EVALUATION OF BREAD WHEAT GENOTYPES FOR SALINITY STRESS TOLERANCE BASED ON SEEDLING TRAITS

The constant salinization of arable land is a warning to the world food security. Salinized soils spreading across the various countries of the world lead to a great loss of cultivated land. Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of most important crops worldwide but suffers from a considerable grain yield losses due to soil salinity. The current study was designed to evaluate bread wheat genotypes for salt tolerance based on seedling traits. In this context, a set of 22 bread wheat genotypes were assessed against salinity stresses at early seedling stage (12 and 16 dSm(-1)) along with control. The obtained mean squares indicated that genotypes, treatments and genotype x treatment interactions differed significantly for all seedling traits, suggesting that genetic resources exploited in the current study were worth to be used in future wheat breeding programs. Based on mean performance under salinity stress conditions, a group of seven wheat genotypes like TD 1, Kiran-95, Hamal, NIA-Sarang, AS-2002, LU-26s and NIA-AS-14 were identified as salinity tolerant; hence these genotypes may be used for further genetic analysis under salinity stress. With respect to cluster analysis based on early seedling performance, all genotypes were classified into four groups. The first group composed of seven wheat genotypes (NIA-Sarang, AS-2002, Kiran-95, LU-26s, NIA-AS-14, TD-1 and Hamal), indeed the genotypes of this group reflected a vigorous growth nevertheless recognized as tolerant against salinity stress, indicating that these bread wheat genotypes may provide useful genetic recombinations for salinity stress hence may be exploited for further breeding programs. However, second group was tagged as moderately tolerant while thrird and fourth group of genotypes were specified as sensitive and highly sensitive to salinity, respectively.