Effect of different salinity levels on germination indices of 20 new quinoa genotypes

Iran's climate change to hot and dry, and the gradual salinization of arable soils on the one hand, and the good tolerance of the quinoa to drought, salinity and frost on the other hand, makes the use of quinoa as a suitable plant reasonable. This study was carried out with the aim of investigating 20 new cultivars of quinoa in vitro and also evaluating salinity tolerant cultivars for introduction and development in field preliminary experiments.

In order to obtain tolerant cultivars of quinoa to salinity for field experiment conditions, as well as to study the effect of different salinity levels on seed germination indices of quinoa, a factorial experiment with four replications in a randomized complete block design with four replications in 2017 The Khuzestan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center was designed and implemented. Treatments included a combination of four salinity levels of zero, low, medium and high (0, 100, 200 and 300 mM NaCl, respectively) and 20 quinoa cultivars.

Results showed that different salinity values had a significant effect on germination percentage, germination rate index, germination rate coefficient, mean germination time and seedling vigor index of different cultivars (P <0.001). At zero salinity levels: Santamaria, Titicaca, Red carina, Q12, Q22, Q31, Q102 and 882051, at low and medium salinity levels: Santamaria, Titicaca, Red carina, Q12, Q22, Q31, Q101, Q102 and 882051, and at high levels: Santamaria, Titicaca, Q102, Q12 and 882051 showed superiority in all germination indices. In general, Santamaria, Titicaca, Q102, Q12, Q31, and 882051 cultivars were in the medium to strong group at different salinity levels. This indicates the stability of germination components of these cultivars under different environmental conditions. Therefore, this group of cultivars can be considered as promising cultivars for field experiments.

The results showed that the salinity stress affected the measured indices in this experiment and reduced these indices. Also, among the cultivars studied, Santamaria, Titicaca, Q102, Q12, Q31 and 882051 showed a good response among all the traits tested. And in response to salinity stress, they showed the lowest decrease among most of the traits, indicating the ability of these cultivars to withstand adverse salinity conditions and the ability to be introduced in early field trials.