Field Screening of Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes for Salinity Tolerance at Three Locations in Egypt

Abstract

Although screening large numbers of wheat genotypes for salinity tolerance under controlled elevated salinity levels in the greenhouse is useful, the final screening in the field at different locations, where soils are naturally affected with salt and other uncontrolled factors in soil and climate interact with salinity, is a must before deciding the most suitable genotype for each location. In the present study, 117 bread wheat doubled haploid (DH) lines derived from the cross Sakha 8 X Line 25, along with their parents and the two check cultivars Sakha 93 and Sids 1 were screened for salinity tolerance under field conditions at three locations and two seasons, i.e. Serw (2011/12), Sakha (2011/12), Sakha (2013/14) and Gemmeiza (2013/14), where ECe was 9.4, 5.7, 5.5 and 2.4 dSm-1, respectively and irrigation water ECw was 0.46 - 0.60 dSm-1. The genotypes were classified into salt tolerant, moderately tolerant, sensitive and very sensitive based on grain yield/ plant. The rank of tolerant genotypes differed from one location to another and from season to season. The ten most tolerant DH lines across all environments were No.19, 44 , 65 , 33 , 24 , 2 , 21 , 98 61 and 99. The best DH line out-yielded the best check by 40.6% at Serw 11/12 (L40), 107.8% at Sakha 2011/12 (L16), 10.2% at Sakha 2013/14 (L2), 28.5% at Gemmeiza 2013/14 (L71) and 48.7% across the four environments (L19).