English abstract
Three cultivars of chickpea viz. Bahla, Yanqul and Turkey and six cultivars viz. mungbean viz. Rustaq, Bahla, Yanqul, Salalah, Ibra and China were investigated with objectives to study their response to different levels of salinity, to select saline tolerant cultivars at desired level of salinity within thresh-hold tolerance limits and to recommend selected saline tolerant cultivars for growing at target sites in both interior and coastal areas of Oman. The experiments were carried out in both laboratory and field conditions during winter 2004 and 2005 growing seasons. The salinity tolerance of the entries was assessed using the concepts of both stress susceptibility index at each higher salinity level in relation to control (lowest salinity level) and mean value over the salinity treatments with respect to each character. The results indicated that the effects of the salinity and varieties and the effect of their interaction were highly significant (p<0.01) with respect to germination %, plant height, number of leaves/ plant, number of leaflets/ plant, number of pods/ plant and test weight of seed (100 seeds) in case of chickpea and plant height, number of leaves, plant, leaf area, number of pods/ plant, length of pods, number of seeds per pod and test weight of seed (100 seeds) in case of mungbean. The adverse effect of salinity was evident in cultivars for all the characters. As a result, stress susceptibility index values were found to vary for each character among the cultivars with different levels of salinity. Among the cultivars of chickpea tested, the salinity tolerance of ev. Bahla was of highest degree followed by cv. Turkey Tanca while among cultivars of mungbean evaluated, cv. Bahla showed the highest degree of tolerance followed by cv. Yanqul and cv. Salalah. The local cultivars of chickpea and mungbean used in the present study were from the personal germplasm collections for the present investigation. Based on these results, it would appear that local chickpea and
mungbean cultivars have productive potential under saline conditions.
