Iranian Journal of Field Crop Science

Iranian Journal of Field Crop Science

Evaluation of Wheat Germplasm in Response to Salinity Stress

Authors
Abstract
To improve bread wheat salt tolerance, new genetic sources of salt tolerance are indispensable, and this requires a screening of wheat germplasm. In order to evaluate bread wheat germplasm, 34 accessions including; hexaploid wheats (AABBDD), tetraploid (AABB) and wild relative diploids (DD and AA genome) collected from different regions of Iran were evaluated under normal vs. salinity stress (NaCl) conditions, using a factorial experiment in a hierarchical design with three replications. The assessed characters were biological dry weight, tissue Water Content (WC; shoot H2O per dry shoot mass), Na+ and stress tolerance index (ST). Stress tolerance was significantly correlated with tissue Na+ concentration and WC. The estimated coefficient of genetic variability (%CVg) via expected mean squares showed that there is a significant genetic diversity in population. Cluster analysis on the basis of Ward's method rendered all the accessions clustered into four clusters at a distance of 7.4. There was a good consistence between clustering results and %CVg. Some accessions were observed with a high shoot Na+ concentration and a high level of ST while some with low Na+ along with high ST. Therefore, breeding for improved ST in bread wheat needs a selection for traits related to both Na+ exclusion and tissue tolerance as well as pyramiding of both into breeder’s lines, using Marker-assisted selection that has the potential to accelerate this breeding process.
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