Differential nutrients absorption an important tool for screening and identification of soil salinity tolerant peanut genotypes.

Abstract

Field screening of 210 high yielding peanut germplasm accessions was undertaken to identify salinity tolerant genotypes based on plant mortality, seed yield and nutrient absorption. The salinity (4.5 dS m-1 at sowing and 3.5–3 dS m-1 15–80 days after sowing), reduced plant stand, yield and yield attributes in peanuts with 0–70 % plant mortality and 9–78 % plant stand (average 51 %) at maturity, and out of 210 genotypes, only 134 showed pods setting. The seed yield of peanut genotypes, under saline condition, ranged from 0 to 203 g m-2, and out of these ten genotypes NRCG 10874, 420, 13831, 9052, 12750, 9189, 894, 13787, 13791 and 9038 with more than 150 g m-2 seed yield were categorized as tolerant and 21 genotypes with 100–149 g m-2 seed yield as moderately tolerant to salinity. However, more than 100 genotypes with high mortality and less than 30 g m-2 seed yield were grouped as sensitive to salinity. The mineral analyses, of the tolerant, moderately tolerant and sensitive peanut genotypes, reveals selective absorption of minerals in the leaves with marked differences. The salinity tolerant genotypes showed less than 0.25 % Na, 0.20 Na/K ratio and 0.05 Na/Ca ratio, however, the salinity sensitive genotypes showed more than 0.4 % Na, 0.25 Na/K and 0.06 Na/Ca ratio in their leaves which are proposed as marker for selecting the salinity tolerance peanut genotypes.