A Greenhouse Screening Technique for Acid Soil Tolerance in Maize

Abstract

Evaluating maize (Zea mays L.) in the field for tolerance to soil acidity is expensive and provides variable results. To identify alternative screening techniques for maize, the present study adapted a pot bioassay already used for other crops. Two experiments were conducted. One included a set of diallel crosses from eight parents and the other a set of 10 open‐pollinated cultivars. These materials were evaluated under field conditions, in nutrient solution, and in pots containing 2 kg of soil. The best results were obtained after growing plants for 14 d in pots containing soils having intermediate stress (45–65% AI saturation). Fresh root weight, total length (or lateral root length), and visual scoring provided the best separation between tolerant and susceptible genotypes, lacked a significant genotype ✕ soil interaction, and were efficient, simple, and rapid measurements. Significant phenotypic correlations (≈ 0.55) were observed between these variables and yield in the field. While efficiently distinguishing tolerant from susceptible genotypes, the pot bioassay could not clearly detect differences in levels of tolerance. This technique should be useful mainly in the early stages of maize breeding. Results suggest that maize possesses several mechanisms for tolerance to soil acidity.

Screening of pigeonpea genotypes for nutrient uptake efficiency under aluminium toxicity

“…Moreover, screening at field level is very expensive and time consuming when a large number of genotypes are under evaluation (Garcia et al 1979). Besides, the results obtained with solution culture screening method correlate positively with those obtained using field screening (Urrea-Gomej et al 1996), indicating reliability and dependability of laboratory screening methods.…”

New genetic sources of resistance in the genus Phaseolus to individual and combined aluminium toxicity and progressive soil drying stresses

“…The high relationship of stressed and unstressed treatments implies that differences among genotypes were largely constitutive. Urrea-Gómez et al (1996) suggested that constitutive morphological characteristics such as vigorous rooting could be advantageous in the breeding of Al-resistant cultivars. One underlying issue that may influence plant response is the initial vigour of the seedlings, reflecting differences in seed size.…”

Genotypic Variation in Seedling Tolerance to Aluminum Toxicity in Historical Maize Inbred Lines of Zambia

“…Screening and selection for Al tolerance in maize involves field evaluation for more than one cropping season [17]. However, the high coefficient of variation resulting from spatial variation in the soils poses a challenge to field evaluation [17] and eventually affects the reliability of the results.…”

“…However, the high coefficient of variation resulting from spatial variation in the soils poses a challenge to field evaluation [17] and eventually affects the reliability of the results. Therefore, laboratory hydroponic studies of root traits offer another option if the laboratory results are correlated to field performance under the same stress conditions [17][18][19].…”

“…However, the high coefficient of variation resulting from spatial variation in the soils poses a challenge to field evaluation [17] and eventually affects the reliability of the results. Therefore, laboratory hydroponic studies of root traits offer another option if the laboratory results are correlated to field performance under the same stress conditions [17][18][19]. In maize, laboratory studies on seedling traits have been reported to be highly correlated to field performance for low nitrogen conditions [20], nutrient and water use efficiency [21], and weak correlation for aluminum toxicity [19].…”