Morpho-physiological response of groundnut genotypes to salinity stress at early seedling stage

An experiment was conducted at the Department of Crop Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the period from January, 2020 to June, 2020 to evaluate the morpho-physiological response of groundnut genotypes under salinity stress at early seedling stage. The four groundnut genotypes were, namely, V1= BARI Chinabadam-8, V2= Maijchar badam (Dhaka-1), V3= Binachinabadam-6 and V4= Binachinabadam-8. Two salinity levels were, namely, S1= 0 dS/m NaCl and S2= 12 dS/m NaCl used for hydroponic experiment. The treatments were designed in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with four replications in a factorial arrangement. The parameters of the experiment measured were root length, shoot length, number of leaves, number of leaflets, leaf area, Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) value, root fresh weight, leaf fresh weight, shoot fresh weight, root dry weight, leaf dry weight, and shoot dry weight. The result indicated that there were significant differences between the genotypes and salinity stress in all of the studied parameters. Maximum root length (33.20 cm), number of leaves (7.25), number of leaflet (24.50), leaf area (128.07 cm2), SPAD value (41.67), leaf fresh weight (3.43 g) and shoot dry weight (0.11 g) were recorded in the genotype Binachinabadam-6 in a combination of control condition. On the contrary the minimum shoot length (12.17 cm), root length (16.72 cm), number of leaves (2.75), number of leaflet (15.50), leaf area (21.90 cm2), SPAD value (31.42), leaf fresh weight (0.72 g), shoot fresh weight (0.92 g), leaf dry weight (0.11 g) and shoot dry weight (0.09 g) were recorded from the genotype Binachinabadam-8 in stress condition. So, the higher susceptible genotype Binachinabadam-8 to saline conditions and the lower was Binachinabadam-6. Therefore, it may be concluded that the variety Binachinabadam-6 will be more suitable for the saline prone areas of Bangladesh.