The characterization of wheat genotypes for salinity tolerance using morpho-physiological indices under hydroponic conditions

Salinity affects plant growth, development, yield, and is a big challenge for wheat growth across the globe. Possible feasible solution is creation of salt-tolerant material, genetic variation is a criterion to developing genetically superior individuals. To assess the genetic variation for salt tolerance, nationally and internationally-derived 81 wheat genotypes were selected and evaluated in 0- and 150-mM salt in nutritional culture at seedling stage. Results indicate that salinity levels reveal significant (p ≤ 0.01) differences for fresh root weight (RW), shoot length (SL), fresh shoot weight (SW), total plant length (TL), total fresh weight (TW), root/shoot weight ratio (RSWR), root/shoot length ratio (RSLR), and relative growth rate for weight (RGR-Wt). While, there was no difference for root length (RL). Hierarchical Clustering and Pairwise correlation analysis showed TW, RGR-Wt, SL, SW, and RW were positively correlated among themselves, whereas RL had poor correlations with all the traits except TL and RSLR. Hence, selection of SL can improve the performance of other parameters. Based on PCA analysis, SW and RGR-Wt were the major discriminative components for wheat genotypes. Present study explained that shoot related parameters could be used as a selection criterion to categorize salt-tolerant genotypes. Outperforming genotypes 1104 and 1106 in saline conditions could be used as parents in creation of salt-tolerant wheat genotypes, and parameters such as SL, SW, TW, and RGR-Wt for early screening will be important for creating salt-tolerant and high yielding wheat genotypes.