Effect of Salinity and Seed Priming on Growth Characters of Wheat Varieties

The research study entitled “Effect of salinity and seed priming on growth characters of Wheat varieties” was carried out at Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (IBGE), The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during winter 2013-2014. The experiment was conducted in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications. The response of fourteen wheat varieties at two seed treatments (primed with 50 mM CaCl2 and un-primed) with four salinity levels (0, 45, 90, 135 mM) was studied in sand as growth media. The results revealed that incremental increase of salinity stresses had decreasing effect on growth parameters compared with control. Highest germination (85.42% and 84.31%) was recorded from wheat varieties (Lalma-2013 and Pirsabak-2005). Minimum germination (64.40% and 73.89%), tillers plant^-1(2.83 and 3.49), leaves plant^-1(11.44 and 12.79), leaf area (21.47cm2 and 25.20cm2) and more days to emergence (9.92 and 8.98), was recorded from salinity levels of 135mM and 90mM, respectively compared with maximum germination (94.80%), tillers plant^-1 (4.42), leaves plant^-1 (17.45), leaf area (32.10cm^2) less number of days to emergence (7.54) from control. All growth parameters were significantly improved by seed priming with CaCl2 except shoot length (cm). It is concluded that salinity stresses has adversely affected growth traits of wheat varieties however, seed priming with CaCl2 has alleviated the adverse effects of salinity in wheat varieties.