Screening for salinity tolerance and its management in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Chickpea is an important pulse crop and susceptible to salinity. So, identification of salt tolerant genotypes and enhancement of salinity tolerance is a primary need to sustain the production of chickpea. In view of the above germination and seedling growth responses of seventy one indigenous germplasms were evaluated at 0 dS m⁻¹ and 5 dSm⁻¹ levels of salinity in laboratory condition. Per cent reduction over control in root and shoot length under 5 dSm⁻¹ salinity were used for grouping the germplasms. The germplasms like Digbijoy, DCP 92-3, Murshidabad Local, IC 268971 & G24 showed lower per cent reduction for both root and shoot length. Seed treatments with crude plant materials were found to be effective to overcome some biotic and abiotic stresses. So, efforts have been made to ameliorate the adverse effect of salinity by treating the seeds of chickpea variety Mahamaya 2 with nineteen different crude plant preparations. Effect of seed treatment on rate of imbibition, germination, radical length and seedling vigour under 6 dS m⁻¹ of salt stress condition were examined. Imbibition rate, radical length and germination per cent were higher in treated seeds than untreated seeds under saline condition. Better seedling growth was exerted by the treatments like Coriander, Vitex, Tobacco, Kalmegh and Bel. Salinity tolerance of the treated seeds were further tested in 0 dS m⁻¹ and 6 dS m⁻¹ of Hoagland solution. Results depicted that the deleterious effect of salinity can further be countered in a better way by applying nutrient solution along with herbal treatments. These laboratory tests need to be confirmed under field condition.