Tropentag, October 5 - 7, 2004 in Berlin "Rural Poverty Reduction through Research for Development and Transformation"

Salt Tolerance of Main Sorghum Genotypes for Salt Affected Soils of Sudan

¹Land and Water Research Institute Wad Medani, Sudan
²University of Kassel, Institute of Crop Science, Witzenhausen, Germany
³Gezira Research Station, Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC), Sudan

Abstract

Arid and semi-arid conditions contribute to more than 50 % of the total coverage of Sudan. One of the main crops that is found suited such climatic conditions, is Sorghum bicolor which is considered as the main food of more than 70 % of the population. Salt affected soils contribute to more than 26 % of the total cultivated land that in addition to many indicative signs of secondary salinisation creep from North to South. Chemical treatments together with leaching of salts are found to have many restrictions due to the heaviness of most salt affected soils and some problems related to water availability. To attain sustainable sorghum production under such above mentioned conditions, six sorghum genotypes were tested on soils with different levels of salt concentrations. Other than the control the levels were 2, 4, and 8 dS m^-1 in the saturation extract, the treatments were selected comparatively to the natural prevailed conditions of the semi-arid habitat. For artificial salinisation NaCl was used because NaCl is found to be the dominant salt in the salt affected soils of the semi-arid conditions of Sudan. The sorghum genotypes selected for this study were ICSV 207, ICSV 112, F.W. Ahmed, Ingaz, PSV 16 and Tabat. The treatments were arranged in a Complete Randomised Block Design with four replications (pot experiment). The preliminary results showed varietal differences in response to different levels of salt for both tested yield components: grain yield and biomass. The key findings of this study are: 1. The tested genotypes were ranked from tolerant to sensitive as to the varietal significant differences in biomass as follows: F.W. Ahmed, ICSV 112, PSV 16, Ingaz, Tabat, ISCV 207. 2. The tested genotypes were ranked from tolerant to sensitive as to the varietal significant differences in grain yield as follows: ICSV 112, ICSV 207, Tabat, PSV 16, Ingaz, F.W. Ahmed.

Keywords: Arid conditions, salt affected soils, salt tolerance, sorghum

Contact Address: Christian Richter, University of Kassel, Institute of Crop Science, Witzenhausen, Steinstraße 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany, e-mail: chrichtwiz.uni-kassel.de