INT J CURR SCI 2016, 19(4): E 52-61 RESEARCH ARTICLE
ISSN 2250-1770
Effect of Different Salinity Levels on Maize (Zea mays L.) Genotypes During Germination Diriba Shankoa*, Itefa Degefab, Bula kerec and Gebayo Hayetod a,b c,Biology
Department, College of Natural and Computational Sciences (CNCS), Bule Hora University (BHU), P.O. Box: 144, Bule Hora, Oromia, Ethiopia dGraduate
student at Bule Hora University, Biology Department
*Corresponding author: diribashanko78@gmail.com Abstract Salinity is main threats to world food security, to ensure future food needs, production of salt tolerant crop varieties are necessary. This study was going to screen out the salt tolerant maize genotypes under salt stress condition. An experiment was performed as factorial under Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. The experimental treatments were contained four NaCl salinity levels (0, 80, 160 and 240 mM) and nine maize genotypes (61006, Mal-1, Mal.hybrid, 215065, MHQ, 207346, 227235, M-130 and 61036) were used in this experiment. Data was analyzed using SAS (version 16.0) statistical software and means were analyzed by least significance difference (LSD). Germination percentage (GP), Germination rate (GR), final germination percentage (FGP), radicle length (RL), plumule length (RL) and seed vigour (SV) were measured. The ANOVA for treatments, genotypes and their interaction was found to be highly significant (p<0.05) with regard to all parameters. Genotypes MHQ, 207346 and Mal.hybrid were salt tolerant genotype during germination but 227235 and 61036 genotypes were salt sensitive. The rest maize genotypes were intermediate in the salt stress condition. However, correlation analysis was demonstrated that positive correlation between GR and RL as well as between PL and RL, SV to salt stress. The results show that salt tolerant genotypes could be a better source for breeders for further evaluation on salt affected soil. This current study indicated that physiological indices are used as a selection tool for salinity tolerance in maize genotypes. Keywords: germination; NaCl; salinity; maize Received: 09th September 2016; Revised: 19thSeptember; Accepted: 22ndSeptember; Š IJCS New Liberty Group 2016 Introduction
no
sufficient
rainfall
which
percolates
salt
Crop productivity is seriously affected by soil
concentration from the root zone of crop plants that
salinity throughout the world. The deleterious effects of
mainly happened due to the presence of high
salt stress are obvious in soil, in arid and semiarid
evaporation rate (Almasouri et al., 2001). In addition,
climate owing to poor soil and water management
the existing of soil salinity problems in crop production
activities (Azevedo et al., 2006). In these areas, there is
will become worse due to rapidly growing human