Mondal and Borromeo (2016) / J. Biosci. Agric. Res. 10(01): 843-847 DOI: 10.18801/jbar.100116.102 843 Published with open access at journalbinet.com EISSN: 2312-7945, © Mondal and Borromeo (2016), Research paper Screening of salinity tolerance of rice at early seedling stage Sejuti Mondal a and Teresita H. Borromeo b a Dept. of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU), Salna, Gazipur 1706 b Crop Science Cluster, College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB), College, Laguna, Philippines ✉ For any information: ask.author@journalbinet.com ABSTRACT The study was conducted at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to assess the response of dry season hybrid seeds including parental checks FL478 and NSIC Rc222 to salt tolerance (12 dS/m) at the seedling stage of rice using IRRI screening techniques. The total number of seeds were two hundred thirty-one and irrigated, flood prone, heat tolerance, salinity and problem soils, aerobic and anaerobic germination, rainfed lowland and South Asian samples were used for this experiment. Among them, only 1.73% populations (4 irrigated) were identified as tolerant, 18.18% moderately tolerant, 37.26% sensitive and 46.86% were highly sensitive. Moderately tolerant plants were found from irrigated, flood prone, salinity and problem soils, aerobic germination, anaerobic germination and rainfed lowland and South Asian genotypes. As there was Brown Plant Hopper (BPH) infestation in this experiment, the tolerant genotypes may also be tolerant to BPH and for that reason results were distorted for other genotypes. Therefore, study should be conducted under controlled environment to ascertain the level of salt tolerance of the moderately tolerant populations. Besides, the identified tolerant genotypes (4) should be further tested with 18 dS/m to determine their supremacy to salt tolerance at the seedling and reproductive stages and QTL analysis could be performed to determine the effects of each genomic region of the trait of interest. Key Words: Salinity tolerance, Seedling stage, IRRI, FL478 and NSIC Rc222 I. Introduction Rice is a diploid (2n= 2x= 24) glycophyte, of tropical origin, and is currently the model crop cereals (Jenkins et al., 2008). About 90% of the rice in the world is grown in Asia (nearly 640 million tons) and 85% is devoted for human consumption (IRRI, 1997). Various abiotic stresses greatly affect rice yield and among the abiotic stresses, salinity is the second most prevalent soil problem in rice growing countries of the world and is considered as a serious threat to increased rice production worldwide (Gregorio, 1997). For this reason, millions of hectares in the humid regions of South and Southeast Published with Open Access at Journal BiNET Vol. 10, Issue 01: 843-847 Journal of Bioscience and Agriculture Research Journal home: www.journalbinet.com/jbar-journal.html Cite article: Mondal, S & Borromeo, T. H. (2016). Screening of salinity tolerance of rice at early seedling stage. Journal of Bioscience and Agriculture Research, 10(01), 843-847. Article distributed under terms of a Creative Common Attribution 4.0 International License.