RESPONSE OF SEEDLING PARAMETERS OF SOME SESAME CULTIVARS TO SALINITY CONCENTRATIONS

A.A. KANDIL¹, A.E. SHARIEF², A.A. SAYED^3
1Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Egypt.
²Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Egypt.
³Central Administration for Seed Certification, Ministry of Agriculture, Egypt.

Received : 06-11-2014     Accepted : 09-12-2014     Published : 11-12-2014
Volume : 3     Issue : 2       Pages : 108 - 115
World Res J Agron 3.2 (2014):108-115

Keywords : Sesame cultivars, Salinity levels, shoot and root lengths, shoot and root fresh and dry weights
Academic Editor : Saleh El-Sayed El-Sayed Seadh
Conflict of Interest : None declared

In order to study response of four sesame cultivars i.e. Shandaweel 3, Giza 32, Toshka 1 and Sohag 1 to seven salinity levels i.e. 0, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 20 dSm-1 NaCl and their effect on early seedling stage, a laboratory experiments was conducted at Giza Central Seed Testing Laboratory of Central Administration for Seed Certification (CASC), Ministry of Agriculture, Egypt. Seedling characters i.e. length of shoots and roots, fresh weight of shoots and roots, dry weight of shoots and roots, percentages of seedling height reduction and percentage of relative dry weight were determined. Results showed that Shandaweel 3 cultivar surpassed other cultivars in shoot length, fresh weight of shoots and roots, dry weight of shoots and roots and percentage of relative dry weight followed by Toshka 1 cultivar which came in the second rank. Increasing salinity levels from 0 to 20 dSm-1 significantly decreased all studied characters, except seedling height reduction which increased. Results clearly showed that shoot and root lengths, shoot and root fresh weights, shoot and root dry weights, seedling height reduction and relative dry weight significantly affected by the interaction between sesame cultivars and salinity concentrations. It could be concluded that Toshka 1 or Shandaweel 3 cultivars were more tolerant to salinity stress, which must be put in breeding program of sesame under salinity conditions.