Abstract

High salt contents is one of the most pressing agricultural problem in the world. The growth and development of plants are hindered by salt stress, which ultimately reduce crop yields. Salt affects approximately 32 million hectares of agricultural region in the world. In this study, 20 tomato genotypes were evaluated against two different NaCl concentrations 6 and 12 dSm-1 along with a control treatment. The research was conducted in the glasshouse of the Faculty of Agriculture, under completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications. The data of the following morphological characters like root length, shoot length, fresh root weight, fresh shoot weight, Na+ determination of roots, Na+ determination of leaves, K+ determination of roots and K+ determination of leaves. Through analysis of variance, genetic variation among different genotypes of tomato was calculated. Results of ANOVA showed that genotypes are significantly different from each other. Results from ANOVA illustrated that, significant differences were present among genotypes of tomato and treatments under study also gave significant results. The interaction between treatments and genotypes mostly remained non-significant. Traits like fresh root weight, fresh shoot weight and K+ determination of roots showed non-significant differences between treatment and genotype interaction. All characters under study exhibited significant and highly significant results for genotypes except K+ determination of roots. Similarly, treatments showed significant differences for all traits except K+ determination of roots. Under control condition, genotype CLN-2498A performed best for all traits and genotype Nadar performed poor for these parameters. Genotype PGRI-17902 was considered as best genotype for all traits under NaCl stress (6 dSm-1) and genotype PGRI-19905 performed poor while under (12 dSm-1) NaCl condition, PGRI-17260 appeared to be best genotype for all traits and Sundar behaved as poor genotype. Genotypes showing salt tolerance may be used in further breeding program for the development of salt tolerant tomato cultivars.