Study of salt tolerance in wheat varieties through growth and development approaches

Wheat is one of the most important food crops cultivated in India that considered as moderately sensitive to salinity stress. Present study was conducted to evaluate the growth and developmental response of wheat varieties to salt stress using hydroponics technique. Four wheat genotypes i.e. two durum (HI 8713 and MACS 4028) and two bread wheat (KRL 99 and KRL 210) were selected to study their response under control (best available water) and extreme saline environment (ECiw - 10 dS m-1). Using root length as an index of tolerance, KRL 99 was identified as the most tolerant genotypes which showed 35.67 % reduction in root length under saline environment, whereas other showed higher reduction in root length i.e. 41.78% in KRL 210, 50.68% in MACS 4028 and 78.61% in HI 8713, respectively. Similar results were also noted for shoot length. Under saline condition, higher protein accumulation was recorded in MACS 4028 and HI 8713, whereas KRL 210 showed the less increase (42.5%). All the studied genotypes also showed differential protein profiling banding pattern. The present study concluded that durum wheat genotype also have some potential to survive under saline condition based on growth parameters.