EFFECT OF INDUCED SALINITY STRESS ON GERMINATION AND ION ACCUMULATION OF COWPEA

Abstract

Salinity is one of the most significant abiotic factors in arid and semi-arid areas of the world. This study was conducted to assess the potential for salt tolerance of cowpea genotypes during the germination and early vegetative growth. From the germination test, twenty best performed genotypes were grown at 0, 4, 8 and 12 dS/m at greenhouse of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Gazipur. The experiment was laid out in two factors Complete Randomized Design with two replications. Factor A was twenty cowpea genotypes and Factor B was four NaCl concentrations. From the result, it was found that TVU-2398 and TVU-1330 showed the highest SPAD value (53.1 and 53.62 SPAD unit). In the leaf, the highest Na was found in TVU-1330 (0.206%) and K + in TVU-2398 (0.24%) and TVU-1330 (0.242%). In case of stem, the highest Na + was found in TVU-1330 (0.29%) and TVU-2398 (0.29%) and K + in TVU-1330 (0.206%). So, the genotypes TVU-1330, TVU-2398 and TVU1059 were performed best under salinity condition than other genotypes.