Screening of barnyard millet genotypes (Echinochloa frumentacea Roxb.) for seedling-stage salinity tolerance

Barnyard millet is an under-utilized minor millet, which shows more resilience to various abiotic stress. Salinity is one of the abiotic stresses, where the crop yield gets affected. This study was carried out in 2024 at Chengalpattu district of Tamil Nadu, where initial stress imposition is a major factor that allows us to understand the changes in root length, shoot length, fresh weight and dry weight. Germination percentage and vigour index are the major parameters that were studied to screen the genotypes for salinity tolerance. The genotypes are subjected to sodium chloride treatment, to identify the tolerant genotypes. The treatments include control (without soaking), hydropriming, 50 mM NaCl, 100 mM NaCl, 150 mM NaCl and 200 mM NaCl, upon all the hundred genotypes. The differences in the performance of all the genotypes for each treatment were observed and recorded. Among the genotypes G34 (IEc 688), G25 (IEc 675), G18 (IEc154), G44 (IEc 360) and G43 (IEc 356) are found to be tolerant to salinity. The salinity tolerance in these genotypes has been exhibited due to cellular adjustment mechanisms and ionic balance that is achieved in the cytosol. This research provides insight into how varying salinity levels creates impact on the germination and vigour index of barnyard millet genotypes. The identification of salt-tolerant genotypes would potentially improve crop resilience in saline regions.