article · Journal of Plant Interactions
Assessing salt tolerance in wheat during early germination provides a rapid way to evaluate diverse cultivars. An investigation of seven wheat cultivars under normal and saline conditions examined water uptake patterns, alpha-amylase activity, and genetic profiles using 30 simple sequence repeat markers linked to salt tolerance. Salinity delayed germination time, with genotypic variations in water uptake becoming clear during specific stages of germination. Enzyme activity and germination timing correlated with rates of water absorption. Crucially, a significant correlation linked the physiological germination parameters to the genetic marker data. Five specific polymorphic markers, designated Cdf 9, Cdf 46, Cdf 49, Wmc 503, and Gwm 312, showed strong associations with germination traits. Combining these molecular markers with early physiological screening provides a feasible strategy for evaluating salt tolerance across large sets of wheat genotypes in a short timeframe.
Soil salinity significantly hinders crop productivity and threatens food security globally. Identifying resilient wheat varieties typically requires lengthy field evaluations. Demonstrating that physiological traits during early germination correlate with specific genetic markers offers a rapid, reliable screening approach. This insight helps plant scientists and agricultural programmes accelerate the selection of salt-tolerant wheat varieties suited for cultivation in salt-affected environments.
This work presents an early-stage screening tool for wheat breeding programmes and seed companies seeking salt-tolerant crop varieties. By identifying five specific molecular markers linked to early germination traits under saline conditions, the findings could enable marker-assisted selection pipelines. Because the study evaluated seven cultivars in laboratory conditions, further validation across larger germplasm panels and field settings is required before integration into commercial breeding workflows.
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Although the germination stage accounts for a very short period of a plant’s life cycle, it involves numerous mechanisms and multistage processes that potentially differ among genotypes under salt stress. Therefore, we hypothesized that the parameters controlling the water uptake pattern and α-amylase activity during the seed germination process could be helpful for assessment the salt tolerance of wheat genotypes at the early growth stage. Genotypic differences in the germination ability parameters and α-amylase activity were assessed for seven wheat cultivars under normal and salt stress conditions at the molecular marker level using 30 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers linked to salt tolerance. Results found that genotypic variations in the water uptake pattern were appeared at the late stage of phase II under both salinity levels and more obviously during phase III. Genotypic variations were observed in the germination time (GT), which was delayed by increasing salinity levels. The α-amylase activity and GT were positively and negatively correlated, respectively, with each time of water uptake rate. Significant correlation (r = 0.49, P = 0.026) was observed between similarity coefficients of germination ability parameters and SSR data based on the Mantel test. Among the 24 SSR markers, which showed polymorphism, Cdf 9, Cdf 46, Cdf 49, Wmc 503, and Gwm 312 were associated with almost germination ability parameters (R2 ranged from 0.43 to 0.95). Therefore, based on the molecular marker-phenotypic trait association at germination stage, assessment of salt tolerance in many wheat genotypes in a relatively short time could be conceivable.
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DOI: 10.1080/17429145.2019.1603406
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