Salinity-Tolerance Benchmarking in Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) Accessions for Sustainable Crop Productivity

Abstract

Salinity stress is one of the important constraints to fenugreek production globally. The salinity is important factor in production of fenugreek during the germination, vegetative growth, flowering and pod filling due to a long dry spell and scared water. Fenugreek is important spice used in food product and also having medicinal property. Breeding for salinity tolerance using novel genetic resources is an important mitigation strategy. This study aimed to identify and select the superior fenugreek genotypes that are tolerant to salinity stress and provide them to researchers and seed spices breeders for more intense evaluation and screening. Fifteen genotypes of fenugreek were evaluated in RBD with three replications under different salinity levels during rabi season 2022-23 at College of Horticulture and Forestry, Jhalawar for salinity tolerance. Salinity and genotypes were recorded highly significant differences among the studied characters. Genotype x Salinity interaction was observed highly significant for germination (%) and sodium content(ppm). Genotypes RMt-351, AGF-2, RMt-303, RMt-305 and GM-2 showed the highest seed yield under normal and salinity levels. Based on stress tolerance indices (STI), genotypes RMt-351 had the highest mean values followed by RMt-303 and AFG-2. The first principal component (PC) accounted for about 95.60% of the variation in salt tolerance indices with yield and the second PC for 4.20% by using biplots. Genotypes RMt-351, AGF-2, RMt-303 and RMt-305 were identified as the most stable high yielding genotypes under salinity stress. It is suggested that these genotypes can be consider as parents for hybridization or as a selection in yield improvement of fenugreek under salinity condition.