Genetic studies on salt tolerance in some Broad Bean varieties (Vicia faba L. )

Abstract

Five Faba bean genotypes and their Fl hybrids (through half diallel crosses analysis) were grown under saline and non-saline conditions. Results showed that: growth and yield characters decreased with increasing salinity levels compared with control. Both additive and dominance gene effects were involved in controlling these characters under all treatments. Moderate or high narrow-sense heritability estimates (n. s.) were observed for shoot length, root fresh weight, number of flower/plant , pod length and I 00 seeds weight under different salinity treatment. High salinity levels led to more increasing of osmotic pressure, the dominance component mainly control under all treatments, and low values of (n.s.) were obtained under all treatments .chlorophyll A & B decreased with increasing salinity levels and Low to moderate (n.s.) . Increasing salinity levels led to decreasing of the contents of N, P and K elements in both shoot and root but the Na content was increased .Dominance gene effects is mainly control N shoot content under control , K shoot content under all treatments, K root content under SOOOppm and Na shoot under IOOOppm. Both additive and dominance gene effects were involved in controlling all rest characters , over dominance was observed for all characters except P shoot content under 1000 and SOOOppm , low to moderate(n.s.) for all characters except K root under SOOOppm, K shoot and P root under control which were very low. The esterase isozyme banding patterns revealed that the number and intensities of bands increased with increasing salinity levels, while MDH Isozyme showed unstability for the number of bands with increasing salinity.

Key word: Chemical Content, Faba Bean, Growth Characters, Isozyme, Yield.