Salt tolerance of cowpea genotypes during seed germination and seedling growth

Abstract

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is one of the most important grain legumes worldwide and its production is affected by increasing soil salinity due to global climate change. An experiment was conducted at the Plant Physiology Laboratory of the Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh to evaluate the germination capability of seven cowpea genotypes under salt stress. The germination test was carried out in Petri dishes following two factorial CRD with three replications. Seven cowpea genotypes viz, Red Pine, Green Super, Hai Jiang San Hao, Kegornatki, Kegornatki Green, Kegornatki HYV & Kegornatki Red; and three salt levels viz, 0, 6 & 12 dSm-1, were used as experimental treatments. The germination percentage (GP), mean germination time (MGT), radicle and plumule length, radicle and plumule fresh and dry weight and different stress tolerance indices were recorded to screen the genotypes for salt tolerance. The study highlighted that salt concentrations drastically reduced seed germination and significantly delayed the process in all genotypes. The GP, length and biomass of radicle and plumule and salt tolerance indices were significantly decreased while the MGT was significantly increased with increasing salt stress in all cowpea genotypes. A significant variation among the genotypes in response to salt stress was also observed. Among the seven cowpea genotypes, Hai Jiang San Hao and Green Super showed higher salt tolerance in comparison to the other genotypes based on the measured traits; these genotypes can be used for further breeding program and/or cultivation in coastal saline prone areas with further investigation.
 J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 17(1): 39–44, March 2019

Salinity tolerance of dhainchagenotypes at seed germination and seedling growth

“…Their positions were variable depending upon descriptors (Figure 1, Table 1). Similar observations of reduction of growth under salinity were observed for several plant species such as S. grandiflora (Chavan and Karadge, 1986), cowpea (Islam et al, 2019), and S. sesban (Daba et al, 2020). Salinity affects the seedling growth of plants by slow or less mobilization of reserve foods, suspending the cell division, enlarging and injuring hypocotyls (Kaymakanova, 2009).…”

“…Seeds of 25 accessions of dhaincha plants were collected from Laboratory of Plant Systematics of the same Department (detail collection information available upon request). A two factorial experiment was set following a completely randomized design (CRD) with four replications following Islam et al (2019). The experimental factors were i) dhaincha accessions (twenty-five) and ii) salt stress (three levels; 0, 6 and 12 dSm -1 ).…”

Optimization of Cowpea Productivity and Seed Quality under Soil Natural Salinity Stress Using some Different Protective Treatments تحسين انتاجية وجودة بذور اللوبيا تحت إجهاد ملوحة التربة الطبيعية باستخدام بعض المعالجات المختلفة

“…Such data also confirmed a significantly decrease in the germination and vegetative indices with increasing the concentration of salinity, where the productive seeds from the lower level of soil salinity (area 1) were the more germinated and vegetative seeds than higher saline area (area 2). In harmony with the current results, many studies at different crops indicated the similar results among of them as on cowpea ( Abdel-Haleem and El-Shaieny, 2015; Kandil et al, 2017;Tsague et al, 2017;Islam et al, 2019). In this trend, Khan and Rizvi (1994) attributed this result to salinity that may cause alteration of enzymes and hormones contained in the seeds, the toxicity of salt constituents or lower osmotic potential of germination media lead to imbalance in water uptake (Munns, 2002).…”

Genome-Wide Association Study of Salt Tolerance at the Seed Germination Stage in Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.)

“…Although salt mainly affects the whole physiological process development in plants through ion toxicity and osmotic stress, it is reported that the stage of seed germination is more sensitive to changes in salt levels than other stages [ 8 ]. For example, in Arabidopsis [ 9 ], Sorghum [ 10 ], cowpea [ 11 ], etc. it is the stage most sensitive to salt during seed germination than at other stages of plant development.…”