Screening of Brinjal (Solanum Melongena L.) Genotypes against Salinity

Th e presence of salts in soil, underground water and surface water sources is the main cause of salinity that exacts economic and environmental issues like reduction in agriculture land, productivity, decline in quality of water and destruction of ecosystems . Brinjal is an important vegetable crop that provides valuable nutrition to human diet. Salinity, however is severely limiting its production in recent years. Therefore to evaluate the effect of salinity on different brinja l genotypes a hydroponic experim ent was conducted, in context to screen - out the salinity tolerant variety. For this purpose, eight brinjal genotypes (Punjab Nagina, Twinkle, Black Beauty, Sandhya - F1, Adventa - 303, Kalayan, Shamli and Adventa - 306) were sown under three salinity levels viz; 3.0, 4.5, 6.0 dS m - 1 along with a control treatment (normal irrigation water). The experiment was conducted in complete randomized design (CRD) factorial fashion with three replications. Adequate nutrient source (half strength Hoagland solution) was used with constant pH and the recorded data was analyzed statistically through LSD at 5% level of probability. The results showed that increasing levels of salinity significantly decreased all growth and physiological parameters of brinjal genotype, except Sand hya - F1, which showed maximum tolerance to salinity. It was attributed through minimum decrease in shoot length, root length, shoot fresh weight, root fresh weight, shoot dry weight, root dry weight, carotenoid, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b contents and mem brane stability index of Sandhya - F1. The salinity tolerance in rest of the varieties was in the order of Adventa - 306 > Twinkle > Punjab Nagina > Adventa - 303 > Kalayan > Shamli > Black Beauty. So it may be suggested that brinjal variety Sandhya - F1 should be adopted by the farmers to enhance brinjal production under salt affected conditions.