Vol. 12, Issue 7 (2023)

Author(s):
Shruti, Anil Sirohi, Pankaj Kumar, Jitender Singh, Mukesh Kumar and UP Shahi

Abstract:
Lentil (Lens culinaris) plays a crucial role as a staple food crop in developing countries. However, its production faces significant challenges such as susceptibility to drought and salt stress, along with limited genetic variability. Therefore, it is imperative to develop an efficient prefield drought phenotyping technique and identify diverse drought tolerant and salt tolerant lentil genotypes. In this experiment, the focus was on studying ten different lentil genotypes. Triplicate pots were prepared for each genotype, with approximately five seeds inoculated in each pot. Once the seeds germinated, the 15-day-old seedlings were subjected to drought stress by irrigating them with a solution containing 18% PEG 6000. For inducing salinity stress, the seedlings were watered with a solution containing 200 mM NaCl. This stress treatment was maintained for a period of 30 days. After the stress period, various growth parameters including plant height (PH), seedling vigour index II (SVI II), root length (RL), shoot length (SL), seedling length (SDL), and seedling germination percentage (SGP) were examined. Additionally, other traits such as the number of days required to reach 50% flowering (NFF), 100 seed weight (HSW), number of branches per plant (NBP), and number of days to reach 90% maturity (DM) were also recorded in all three biological replicates of the genotypes. The collected data underwent statistical analysis using ANOVA. Among the ten genotypes studied, PDL 2 and PDL 1 emerged as highly tolerant to drought and salt stress, respectively. These genotypes exhibited maximum seedling survivability and minimal reduction in growth parameters under drought and salt stress conditions. This valuable information can be utilized to further breed lentil varieties with enhanced drought and salt tolerance characteristics.