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Pak. J. Bot., 46(4): 1179-1186, 2014.

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EVALUATION OF BARLEY (HORDEUM VULGARE L.) GERMPLASM FOR HIGH FORAGE PRODUCTION UNDER SALT STRESS

ASMA SALEEM¹, MUHAMMAD ASHRAF^2,3*, NUDRAT AISHA AKRAM⁴, FAHAD AL-QURAINY³ AND MERIEL G. JONES⁵

Abstract: To explore high biomass producing salt tolerant cultivars of a potential forage crop barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), 30-day old plants of 105 different accessions from different origin were subjected to saline and non-saline (control) conditions for 45 days. Salinity stress (150 mM NaCl) markedly suppressed plant growth (shoot and/or root fresh and dry weights), chlorophyll pigments (a and b), internal CO₂ concentration, stomatal conductance, rate of transpiration and photosynthesis, while a considerable salt-induced increase was observed in all fluorescence related attributes including efficiency of photosystem-II (F_v/F_m), co-efficient of non-photochemical quenching (QN), photochemical quenching (QP), and non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) in all 105 accessions of barley. The response of all 105 barley accessions to salt stress varied significantly for all the morpho-physiological attributes determined in the present study. Overall, on the basis of shoot and root dry weights, accessions, 4050, 4053, 4056, 4163, 4228, 4229, 4244, 4245, 4290, 4414, 4415, 4427, 4452, Mahali, Jesto, 4165, 4229, 4249, 4405, 4409, 4426, 4456, and Giza 123 were found superior while accessions, 4245, 4158, 4166, 4246, 4406, 4423, 4441, 4442 4447, 4453 and 4458 inferior under saline conditions.

¹Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

²University College of Agriculture, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan

³Department of Botany and Microbiology, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

⁴Department of Botany, GC University, Faisalabad, Pakistan

⁵Institute of Integrative Biology, The Biosciences Building, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK

*Corresponding author’s e-mail: ashrafbot@yahoo.com