SALT TOLERANCE OF CHILI GENOTYPES DURING GERMINATION AND SEEDLING GROWTH

Salinity is one of the major deleterious environmental problems that lead to a colossal deterioration of agricultural land and productivity globally. Due to lack of salinity tolerant varieties, farmers cultivate indigenous cultivars of chili consequences reduced yield. Therefore, the present research was performed to observe the effect of different levels of salinity on germination and growth at early seedling stage of chili plant. Hence, the effect of six different concentrations of NaCl (sodium chloride) (0, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 mM) on germination and seedling growth of seventeen chili genotypes was investigated. This experiment was performed in Petri dish lined with a layer of cotton consisting 10 ml of each test solution. Our results revealed that all investigated traits were impaired by salt stress and significantly affected the germination parameters, shoot and root length. Among the all investigated chili genotypes, Bogura (Local) and PARTEX PS-1711 were grown well up to 100 mM (NaCl) concentration and found to be the most tolerant genotype or variety to salt stress.