Assessment of salinity tolerance capacity on biochemical attributes and nutrient uptake of promising tomato genotypes

Abstract

An experiment on tomato was conducted at the Net House Premises of Soil Science Division, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Gazipur during the winter season from Nov.2013 to Feb. 2014. The major objective of the study was to assess the salinity tolerance ability of promising tomato genotypes for the identification of salt tolerant ones. Six levels (1.14, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 dS/m) of irrigation water salinity were imposed to three genotypes of tomato V₁ (BARI Hybrid Tomato 4), V₂ (BARI Hybrid Tomato 5) and V₃ (BARI Hybrid Tomato 8). The pot experiment was set up in a Completely Randomized Design with 3 replications. Salinity was imposed as per treatments at the pre flowering stage of 45 and 55 DAS. The photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance and intercellular CO₂ concentration was the highest for the V₃ was at 14.56, 3.09, 0.25 and 199.75 mol/ms, respectively. The ration of Potassium: sodium ratio for V₁, V₂ and V₃ was 3.43, 3.55 and 3.72, respectively, which indicates their adaptability under salt stressed situation to a considerable extent, where the performance of V₃ was slightly better compared to the other two varieties. Increasing levels of salinity resulted in lower SPAD values in leaves regardless of genotype. Photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate and intercellular CO₂ concentration showed significant negative linear relationships with electrical conductivity of the irrigation water. Sodium salt stress showed antagonistic effect on the absorption of N, P, K, Mg and, S while it was synergistic for Ca concentration although root Ca concentration showed declining trend. Considering all studied traits and yield potentiality, BARI hybrid tomato 8 can be regarded as the salt tolerant genotypes.