Heritability and Genotypic Association Among Seedling Attribute Against Salinity Stress Tolerance in Wheat Genotypes for Sustainable Food Security

Abstract

Wheat is a major food for many people globally. It’s essential and widely grown worldwide. The effects of salinity were evaluated of 40 bread wheat genotypes at the seedling stage using heritability and genotypic association analysis. In this experiment, the pots were used to grow the seeds and were subjected to four different concentrations of salt (one control and three salt environments). Hence, the experiment was conducted using a complete randomized design CRD with four replications to determine the salinity-tolerant genotypes. The studied seedling traits namely were, germination percentage (GP), root length (RL), shoot length (SL), shoot fresh weight (SFW), root fresh weight (RFW), shoot dry weight (SDW), root dry weight (RDW), seedling length (SDL), vigor index (VI), relative water content (RWC), chlorophyll content (CC), turgid weight (TW), seedling fresh weight (SdFW), seedling dry weight (SdDW), and stomatal conductance (SC). Analysis of variance results showed that significance variability presence among genotypes and treatments (differnet salinity stressed). The genotypes G5, G27, and G37 performed well against the salinity stress and were considered salinity tolerant while the genotypes G12, G22, and G32 performed worst against stress and were considered salinity susceptible cultivars. The relative water content had a highly significant association in all salinity stressed conditions with all studied attributes while stomatal conductance had a non-significant association. The increase in the salt concentration delayed or stopped the seeds from germinating and in the case of other traits they were significantly affected by the saline environment. Our study suggests that, in future breeding programs, we may derive significant benefits from genotypes that have consistently performed well under salt stress conditions. These genotypes can be used to develop high-yielding, salt-tolerant wheat cultivars, thereby contributing to sustainable food production and global food security.