African Journal of
Agricultural Research

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Agric. Res.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1991-637X
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJAR
  • Start Year: 2006
  • Published Articles: 6863

Full Length Research Paper

Improving salt tolerance and weight percent reduction in tomato by exploiting physio-agronomic seedling traits

Muhammad Ahsan Raza
  • Muhammad Ahsan Raza
  • Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriclture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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Asif Saeed
  • Asif Saeed
  • Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriclture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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Hassan Munir
  • Hassan Munir
  • Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriclture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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Adeela Munawar
  • Adeela Munawar
  • Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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Atif Kamran
  • Atif Kamran
  • Seed Center, Department of Botany, Faculty of Life-Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore (54590), Pakistan.
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Fazal Rehman
  • Fazal Rehman
  • Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriclture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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Awais Riaz
  • Awais Riaz
  • Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriclture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
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  •  Received: 07 December 2017
  •  Accepted: 17 January 2018
  •  Published: 29 March 2018

Abstract

Salinity being a serious limitation to crop production is an established fact since ages. It has adversely affected the adaptive behavior of our field crops particularly at seed germination and seedling stages. Identification of particular plant traits conferring salinity tolerance is important for inducing genetic variation among the target traits and adjusting the selection pressure for them in field. This experimental study was conducted to explore percent (%) weight loss of roots and shoots at increasing salt stresses (control, 10 dS m-1 and 15 dS m-1) along with certain dry weight and cationic ratio tolerance indices. The experiment was conducted in the glasshouse to screen seedlings of 25 tomato genotypes. Principal component analysis and correlation analysis were used to screen the genotypes for variability and salt tolerance. Based on associative interactions for salt tolerance traits and highly negative response towards weight percent (%) reductions, three genotypes were identified as salt tolerant; BEAVER LODGE SLICER, ZARNITZA, and FORME DE COEUR. Two genotypes GLACIER and Rio-GRANDE were highly positive for K+/Na+ and Ca2+/Na+ ratios tolerance indices. Based on these findings, the genotypes BEAVER LODGE SLICER, ZARNITZA and FORME DE COEUR are suggested to be planted in salt affected area. The six genotypes (ANAHU, LO-2707, 17860, UOVO ROSEO, NAGINA and LA-2821) showed significant negative behavior towards weight % reduction, and a little positive towards salt tolerance indices were considered as moderately salt tolerant.

Key words: Weight percent reduction, NaCl, tomato seedling, physio-agronomic, salt tolerance.

 

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This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0

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