Testing salt tolerance to boost on chickpea (Cicer arietinum l. Mill Sp) biomass/cultivation

Abstract

Salinity is an ever present threat to crop yield, especially in countries where irrigation is essential in agriculture. Although Saline tolerance conditions of the plants are variable. Many Crop species are generally intolerant to salinity. Excessive irrigation and poor drainage facilities are the major contributing factors of soil salinity in agricultural lands and one third of the world irrigated land is being affected by soil salinity. Attempts to enhance tolerance have involved conventional breeding programmers, use of invitro selection, pooling physiological traits, interspecific hybridization, using halophytes as alternative crops. Use of marker ‐ aided selection and the use of transgenic plants. Preliminary investigations were conducted on the Chickpea cultivar – DESI I.C.C. 9942 which has small dark seeds and rough coat common to Ethiopia. Experimental investigations were performed on the different soils giving different salinity treatments (NaCl in different percentages). Analysis was done on germination efficiency, number of leaves, and length of the plant and wet Biomass of the whole plant. At 6% of (NaCl) treated plants showed the maximum increase in terms of heights and Wet Biomass. There was twofold difference on germination, heights and biomass of the whole plant against the control. One can exploit this research for boosting the chickpea production in the saline soils where it is difficult to cultivate other crops and also for intercropping in saline soils of Ethiopia. Whether enhanced tolerance is due to the chance of alteration of a factor that is limiting in a complex chain or an effect on signaling remains to be elucidated. Even after many years of research on transgenic plants to alter salt tolerance, the value of this approach has yet to be established.

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