Vol. 12, Special Issue 10 (2023)

Author(s):
K Ananthi, K Parameshwari, V Vijaya Geetha and K Sivagamy

Abstract:
Millets are small grained cereals, have the tradition and heritage in India, the smallest of which include kodo, foxtail, proso, little and barnyard millets. They are the staple food of the millions inhabiting the arid and semi-arid tropics of the world, and are distributed in most of the Asian and African countries and parts of Europe. Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic stress, which play a detrimental role in crop production and productivity in semi-arid regions and tropics. Soil salinity is the salt content in the soil; the process of increasing the salt content is known as salinization. Salts occur naturally within soils and water. Salination can be caused by natural processes such as mineral weathering or by the gradual withdrawn of an ocean. The ions responsible for salinization are Na⁺, K^+,Ca^2+,Mg²⁺ and Cl^-.. Sodium is predominant in saline soil. Proso millet has been reported to have comparable tolerant level to drought and salinity. The tolerance of the Proso millet, ATL 1 towards drought and salinity have been studied by many researchers. The tolerance towards proso millet under salinity is still unknown. In this in-vitro study was carried out at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Vazhavachanur. We have used salts such as NaCl and CaCl₂ at the concentrations of 50 mM, 75 mM and 150 mM. The seeds are sown in the petriplates containing the solutions of NaCl and CaCl₂ at the concentrations of 50 mM, 75 mM and 150 mM respectively. After 15 days of salinity stress treatments, the seeds sowed in 50 mM NaCl showed better germination percentage, root length, shoot length, leaf length, seedling length, fresh & dry weight of seedling, promptness index and seedling vigour index followed by 75 mM NaCl. The results revealed that the seeds sowed in 75 mM and 150 mM CaCl₂ was proves to be very lethal.