14. Evaluation of salt stress tolerance of chilli (Capsicum annuum L.) genotypes at seedling stage
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Abstract
Salinity is increasing problem and is one of the main threats to crop productivity worldwide. Understanding the adverse impact of salt stress (NaCl) at early growth stages is essential for evaluation of salt stress tolerance in plants. A trial was performed during 2017 following completely randomized design (CRD) factorial with three replicates. Three chilli genotypes varieties were received 5 salt stress levels. The canal irigation water having Electrical conductivity (EC) of 0.5 dSm-1 was kept as control. The Salinity levels included 1, 3, 5 and 7 dS m-1, respectively. It was noted that all the studied traits were considerably influenced by salinity (P<0.05) while chilli genotypes showed similarity (P>0.05) for germination, leaves plant-1 and seedling vigour index and significant (P<0.05) differences for other traits. The control (non-saline) showed better performance with 84.4% germination, 5.64 leaves plant-1, 905.4 seedling vigour index, 10.7 cm shoot length, 0.7 g fresh root biomass weight, 13.3 cm length of the root, 4.8 g fresh biomass of the shoot 42.5% electrolyte leakage. Salinity at 1.0 dS m-1 revealed a slight reduction in germination (80.5%) 5.12 leaves plant-1, 843.2 seedling vigour index 10.4 cm shoot length, 0.6 g fresh root biomass weight 13.0 cm length of the root, 4.5 g fresh biomass of the shoot and 48.4% electrolyte leakage. Further increase in salinity showed simultaneous negative impact on all the observed parameters. There was a negligible difference in studied traits when Sky lane-4 was compared with Ghotki. Overall variety Pusa Jawala was most sensitive to salt stress.
Keywords: Salinity; seed germination; seedling growth; chilli genotypes