assessment of inter-cultivar variation for salt tolerance in.pdfVIP

Pak. J. Bot., 41(5): 2251-2259, 2009. ASSESSMENT OF INTER-CULTIVAR VARIATION FOR SALT TOLERANCE IN SAFFLOWER (CARTHAMUS TINCTORIUS L.) USING GAS EXCHANGE CHARACTERISTICS AS SELECTION CRITERIA 1* 1 EJAZ HUSSAIN SIDDIQI , MUHAMMAD ASHRAF , MUMTAZ HUSSAIN1 AND AMER JAMIL2 1Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2Department of Biochemistry, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan Abstract An experiment was carried out to appraise inter-accession variation for salt tolerance in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) using gas exchange attributes and photosynthetic pigments as useful selection criteria. Ten accessions of safflower viz., Safflower-31, Safflower-32, Safflower- 33, Safflower-34, Safflower-35, Safflower-36, Safflower-37, Safflower-38, Safflower-39, Safflower-78 were screened at 150 mM NaCl at the vegetative stage. Salt stress resulted in a considerable decline in biomass (shoot and root dry mass) of all safflower lines. Safflower-36 and Safflower-38 were higher Safflower-39 lower while the remaining lines were intermediate in biomass production under saline regime. Salt stress also reduced physiological and biochemical attributes such as rate of photosynthesis, transpiration, stomatal conductance, and chlorophylls a and b in all safflower lines. A significant inter-accession variation was found in all safflower accessions with respect to difference in net CO2 assimilation rate (A). Since a positive association of net photosynthetic rate (A) with biomass (shoot an