Book of Extended summaries ISDA

International Conference on Reimagining Rainfed Agro-ecosystems: Challenges &
Opportunities during 22-24, December 2022 at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad
T3-21P-1420
Evaluation of F3:4 Population for Seedling Stage Salinity Tolerance in Rice
(Oryza sativa L.)
M. Vani Praveena, P. Venkata Ramana Rao, B. Jyothi, Ch. Sreenivas and D. Ramesh
Agricultural college, Bapatla, ANGRAU
RARS, Maruteru-534122, ANGRAU
ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research (ICAR-IIRR), Rajendranagar, Hyderbad-500030
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is most widely consumed cereal crop with its demand expected to
increase by 38% within 30 years (Ali et al. 2013). With increasing world population, there is a
necessity to increase overall grain production by 1.5% every year, requiring a 35% increase in
production by 2030 and greater than 70% by 2050. Hence, improving rice productivity is
critical to maintain economic growth, food security and sustainable production. However, the
increasing trend in rice production is severely hampered by various abiotic stresses arising due
to climate change and environmental variabilities. In crop plants drought, salinity and
alkalinity, nutrient toxicity or deficiency, flooding and poor drainage, high or low soil pH, high
and low temperatures and heavy metals are some of the important abiotic stresses arising due
to environmental factors which are complex thus limiting the crop production globally. Among
these, drought and salinity have high impact on rice productivity, salinity being second
important abiotic stress in rice after drought. In India about 6.73 million hectares of land is saltaffected,
of which 3.77 and 2.96 million hectares are sodic and saline soils respectively. Rice
is most sensitive to soil salinity at both vegetative and reproductive stages. At the seedling
stage, salinity causes poor rice crop establishment, shorter roots/shoots, and smaller leaves
leading to early plant mortality. Therefore, understanding seedling stage salinity tolerance is
very important for early plant establishment under saline stress which could help the plant to
achieve good vegetative growth later. So, the objective of the present investigation is to
evaluate F3:4 population for seedling stage salinity tolerance and to identify the tolerant lines.
Methodology
A total of 205 F 3:4 population with two parents i.e., MTU 1061 (salt tolerant) and MTU 1121
(salt susceptible) were screened for salinity tolerance at seedling stage in greenhouse following
the standard protocol of IRRI with some modifications (Gregorio et al., 1997). The screening
experiment was conducted in a complete randomized design with 2 replications. Two pregerminated
seeds of 205 F3:4 lines with parents (MTU 1061 and MTU 1121) and checks (MTU
1010 and FL 478) were placed on the styrofoam seedling float. A total 24 styrofoam sheets
were used for screening all the 204 F3:4 lines. The seedling floats were placed inside the
greenhouse. Initially, the seedlings were grown in normal water for two days, followed by
nutrient solution for following two days in Yoshida medium (Yoshida et al., 1976). When the
379 | Page Managing genetic resources for enhanced stress tolerance