Growth and physiological traits of five bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes are influenced by different levels of salinity and drought stress

Abstract

Turgor maintenance through osmotic adjustment can play a vital role in plant tolerance to drought and salinity. As per the evidence of the previous study, chemical polyethylene glycol (PEG) can create physiological drought under both salinity and water deficit conditions. Therefore, PEG is used for forcefully create osmotic stress to find out drought and salinity resistant crop cultivars at the early stage. Considering the essential role of PEG, the current observation was undertaken for understanding the effects of drought and salinity stress on several bread wheat genotypes at early developmental stage particularly during the seedling stage. Five bread wheat genotypes including four varieties such as 'Tekirdag', 'Ceyhan 99', 'Dinc', 'Empire Plus' and a line 'DZ17-1' were used as seed material. To find out the genotypes which are tolerant to drought and salinity, all wheat genotypes were evaluated in four different concentration of NaCl for salinity stress (i.e., 0, 4, 8 and 12 dS/m) and four different concentration of PEG 6000 (i.e., 0, -0.2, -0.4, -0.6 MPa) for drought stress. All treatments were organised in a completely randomized design (CRD) and repeated three times. After observation, it is revealed that bread wheat cultivars 'Dinc' and 'Ceyhan 99' were found tolerant of both drought and salinity stress at the seedling stage. The study also noticed that understanding of seedlings growth such as mean germination time (MGT), coleoptile length, seedling height, root length and relative water content (RWC) allow the selection of genotypes tolerance to drought and salinity. The information from the study will be helpful for examination of wheat genotypes which are suitable to cultivate under osmotic stress of both drought and salinity stress condition.