title: Evaluation of wheat landrace genotypes for salinity  tolerance at vegetative stage by using morphological and molecular markers.
abstract: Identification of new sources of salt tolerance is  particularly important to develop crop varieties suitable for saline soils. We  evaluated 129 Pakistani and 58 exotic wheat landraces/cultivars grown in  Hoagland's hydroponic nutrient solution, under control (tap water equivalent to  10 mM salt) and salt stress (200 mM NaCl) conditions. Forty-four genotypes were  also tested under 250 mM NaCl stress. High heritability and positive  correlations suggested that number of tillers per plant, root length, root  fresh and dry weights, and shoot fresh and dry weights are associated with salt  tolerance and could be used as selection criteria. SSR markers revealed high  genetic variation in the wheat genotypes. Twelve SSR markers (cfd 1, cfd 9, cfd  18, cfd 46, cfd 49, cfd 183, wmc 11, wmc 17, wmc 18, wmc 154, wmc 432, and wmc  503) were found to be associated with salt tolerance because they were  amplified in tolerant genotypes only. Five markers, cfd 9, cfd 18, cfd 183, wmc  96, and wmc 405, were identified as most suitable to evaluate salt tolerance because  they were associated with four or more salt tolerance traits studied. Cultivars  Pasban 90, accessions 10790, 10828, 10823, and 4098805 from Pakistan and  Sakha-92 from Egypt performed best at both stress levels.
authors.affiliation: National Agriculture Research Center, Islamabad, Pakistan. armghan_shehzad@yahoo.com
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shahzad
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iqbal
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Ali
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D005838:Genotype; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D018520:Plant Shoots / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D055049:Salt Tolerance / Q000235:genetics*; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology; D014908:Triticum / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D012965:Sodium Chloride