Performance of Salt Tolerant Wheat Varieties in Salt Affected Soils

The study was conducted in village Rupana of Sirsa district where about 120 ha land is salt affected. In kharif season, the field remained fallow due to hazardous effect of salts. Even in Rabi season, the traditional wheat varieties could not withstand owing to higher salt accumulation in root zone. In the Rabi 201314, KVK demonstrated a salt tolerant wheat variety for salt affected area of the village. Initially seed of variety was demonstrated to 15 farmers in the year 2013–14. This variety registered an average yield of 32.4 q/ha as compared to PBW-343 (10.2 q/ha). In the next year 2014–15, a new salt tolerant variety No. 2 (KRL-213) was also introduced in the village which proved to be more effective than salt tolerant variety no 1. In all, both salt tolerant varieties were superior and economically viable as compared to PBW-343.