Evaluation of Rice and Wheat Cultivars for Tolerance to Salinity and Sodicity in Soil

Abstract

The large genotypic variation for salt tolerance in rice and wheat is the driving force behind efforts to identify appropriate cultivars for salt‐prone environments where large variations in salinity (electrical conductivity, EC) and sodicity (sodium adsorption ratio, SAR) levels exist. An evaluation of the commonly grown rice and wheat cultivars at different EC/SAR ratios may thus help in coping with the crop failures on salt‐affected soils. Accordingly, we evaluated some salt‐tolerant cultivars of rice and wheat for growth and yield at different soil salinity and sodicity levels in a sandy clay loam soil. Among the cultivars tested, rice ‘SSRI‐8’ produced the highest productive tillers and paddy yield, and wheat cultivar ‘SIS‐32’ produced the highest tillers and grain and straw yields. The high EC/SAR ratios proved more hazardous for rice than for wheat. Irrespective of the varieties tested, the highest levels of EC and SAR (T5 and T6) caused significant reduction in paddy yield, whereas at the lowest levels of EC and SAR (T1 and T2), paddy yield was not affected significantly when compared with the control. However, in case of wheat crop, all the levels [i.e., the lowest (T1 and T2), medium (T3 and T4), and the highest (T5 and T6) of EC and SAR tested] affected wheat yield adversely with significant differences. For both the crops, there were little or no differences in yield between the two ratios tested (i.e., 1:2 and 1:4) at all the levels of EC and SAR.