English

Abstract

The purpose of this study was found out to investigate the response of some rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars to germination parameters under salinity stress. This study was carried out to confirm rice seedling growth performance and to examine a range of genetic variability for salinity tolerance among ten rice cultivars under seven salinity levels. A laboratory experiment was accompanied at Giza Central Seed Testing laboratory (CASC), Egypt. The results showed that rice cultivars significantly varied in means of Final Germination Percentage (FGP), Germination Rate (GR), Germination Index (GI), Vigor Index (VI), Root Length, Shoot Length, Root Fresh Weight, Shoot Fresh Weight, Root Dry Weight, Relative Dry Weight and Seedling Height Reduction. Sakha 102 and Sakha 106 had positive effects in most of studied characters while, Giza 181 cultivar had negative effects in most of germination parameters under study. Salinity levels significantly varied in all germination parameters under study except shoot dry weight character. Increasing salinity concentration from 0 to 14% NaCl gradually reduced averages of germination and seedling characters. All studied characters were significantly affected by the interaction between cultivars and salinity stress, vice versa, shoot, root fresh weight and root dry weight didn't affect by interaction. It could be established that for exploiting rice germination percentage and seedling parameters under salinity stress are recognized by using rice Sakha 102, Sakha 106, Sakha 104 and Egyptian Yasmin cultivars with increasing salinity levels up to 14% NaCl. These cultivars were more tolerant to salinity and suggested to use in breeding program for attractive rice production in Egypt . Key wordsOryza sativa, salinity concentration, germination characters, rice cultivars, seedling parameters International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710 & E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 4, Issue 6, 2012 Introduction Rice is considered as a major cereal crop for more than 50% of the world population. There is a great shortage in rice production more than 25% of the recent production may be needed [1]. Moreover, rice ranks second after wheat crop as the national income is concerned. The excessive increase in population in Egypt needs to increase the total yield of this crop in order to overcome this lack in production through its cultivation in the newly reclaimed lands especially under saline conditions of such soil. Rice is one of the most effective and commercial means of reclaiming hundreds of thousands of hectares of saline lands in Egypt. Growth characters including shoot height, fresh weight, dry weight and leaf area of salt-stressed seedlings were inhibited, depending on rice genotypes [2]. Rice varieties showed a great variation in germination due to salinity effects. Many investigators concluded that differences among rice cultivars in germination characters and seedling parameters[3,15,17,22]. Salinity is one of the major obstacles in enhancing rice production in growing areas in Egypt. Salinity decreases final germination percentage, speed of germination and led to reduction in shoot and root length and dry weight in all varieties and the magnitude of reduction increased with increasing salinity stress [11]. Therefore, development of salt tolerance varieties has been considered as one of strategies to increase rice production in saline prone Citation: Kandil A.A., Sharief A.E. and Nassar E.S.E. (2012) Response of Some Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Cultivars to Germination Under Salinity Stress. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences, ISSN: 0975-3710 & E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 4, Issue 6, pp-272-277. Copyright: Copyright©2012 Kandil A.A., Sharief A.E. and Nassar E.S.E. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.