EFFECT OF VARYING LEVELS OF SALINITY ON GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF FORAGE SORGHUM GENOTYPES
PUMMY KUMARI,*, S. K. PAHUJA, R. S. SHEORAN, SATYAWAN ARYA AND U. N. JOSHI
Forage Section, Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding
CCS Haryana Agricultural University,
Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : pummy.choudhary84@gmail.com)
(Received : 3 January 2017; Accepted : 26 April 2017)
SUMMARY
Exploiting genetic variability to identify salt tolerant genotype is one of the strategies used to overcome salinity. The experimental treatments included four NaCl salinity levels (0, 4, 8 and 12 dS/m) and 11 sorghum genotypes. The experimental design was completely randomized design with three replicates. The data were recorded on various morphological and quality traits. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) for treatments, genotypes and their interaction was found to be highly significant (P<0.001) with regard to all parameters. All parameters measured showed to have an inverse relationship with increase in NaCl salinity levels. Significant decrease in the fodder yield and its components was observed with the increased level of salinity. The per cent loss of green fodder yield (GFY) and dry fodder yield (DFY) was maximum in terms of percentage in EC 3 (12.0 dS/m) followed by EC 2 (8.0 dS/m) and EC 1 (4.0 dS/m). The sorghum genotypes were SSG 9, IS 3237 and HJ 541 for Cl- dominating salinity. So, these genotypes can be useful as genetic resources for crossing programme for the development of sorghum cultivars with improved agronomic and quality traits under salt stress.
Key words: NaCl, salinity tolerance, sorghum genotypes, fodder, quality