Effect of salinity on growth, yield and ion contents of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes (original) (raw)

Soil salinity is one of the most distressing ecological stresses which reduces the agrarian production. However, the impact of salinity varies among species and genotypes. The experiment tested the salt tolerance of ten rice genotypes including, four aromatic (DR-67, Latifee, Super Basmati and DR-66) and six non-aromatic genotypes (DR-92, DR-51, IR-6 Shahkar, NIA-19A and Shua-92 check). The study used two factorial completely randomized design (CRD) with four salinity levels (T1-2.3 (control), T2-6.0, T3-9.1 and T4-12.8 EC dS m-1), at Green house, Department of Botany, Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur. Initially, a nursery of all genotypes was developed in a normal soil. The seedlings (25 days old) were transplanted into pots filled with 10 kg air of dried soil. Each pot contained one plant hill-1 and three hills pot-1. The recommended rate of NPK (160:90:37 kg ha-1) fertilizer was used. The results indicated that almost all agro-morphological traits like shoot height, root length, total tiller numbers and productive tiller numbers, total number of filled grains, 1000 grains weight, spikelet fertility percentage root and shoot dry weight, and harvest index percentage were reduced significantly with a rise in salt concentrations. Genotypes DR-92, DR-51 and IR-6 accumulated less sodium (Na+), more potassium (K+) and had higher K+/Na+ ratio in straw and grain samples hence were less affected against all salinity levels as compared to other rice genotypes. On contrary, genotypes Super Basmati and DR-66 showed meager performance regarding all tested traits against all salinity levels.