RICE CULTURE Screening Rice Cultivars for Salinity Tolerance Using a Simple Laboratory Incubation

The research presented here highlights the use of a simple incubation procedure to evaluate the relative salt tolerance of currently available rice cultivars over a wide range of salt concentrations. Rice seeds were subjected to a series of salt solutions from 0 to 20 micromhos/cm, and the ability of each cultivar to germinate and develop to the S3 growth stage was evaluated. Germination values were normalized based on the germination of an individual cultivar at 0 micromho/cm salt concentration so that the influence of salt concentration on rice germination could be assessed independent of other factors that might influence germination. Seven cultivars included in the screening never dropped below the threshold of 80% germination set for this study, even at the highest salt concentrations. These cultivars included CL111, CL151, CL261, CLXL745, XP4523, CLXP4534, and Taggart. A wide range in relative germination was reported in this study indicating that within the cultivars currently available to rice producers there is the potential for some cultivars to perform better in salt affected soils than others. This study only evaluated rice seed germination through the S3 growth stage and further work should be completed to evaluate the performance of these cultivars during the vegetative growth stage.