RESEARCH ARTICLE IMPACT OF SALINITY ON SEED GERMINATION AND BIOMASS YIELDS OF FIELD PEA (PASUM SATRIUM L.) *Girma Wolde and Chigigne Adamu Department of Plant Science, College of Agriculture and Natural Resource, Wolkite University, Ethiopia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Salinity stress negatively affects seed germination and growth of different crops. There are reasonably adequate information on the effects of salinity on crops germination and emergence. However, scanty information is available on the impacts of salinity on crops biomass production during seedling growth. Thus, a series of two experiments: laboratory experiment to evaluate the effect of different salt concentration on seed germination percentage and germination rate of field pea and pot experiment to investigate the effect of salt on biomass yields of field pea were conducted. Both the experiments, laboratory and pot experiments, have six treatments (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 mM of salt concentration) and treatments were laid out in randomized complete design (CRD) with four and three replications respectively. The results revealed that the highest germination percentage and germination rate of 98 % and 2.15 seeds per day, respectively were scored from the control treatment. The highest plant height, leaf number, branch number and above ground dry biomass of 25.6 cm, 6.79 leaf per plant, 2.5 branch per plant and 1.93 g respectively were scored from control treatment that was statistically similar with 10 mM salt concentration, while the lowest value of these parameters were recorded from pots treated with 50 mM of salt concentrations . Therefore, salt content of irrigation water greater than 10 mM might reduce yields of field pea. However, the results presented here need to be confirmed through on farm research under various soil and agro climatic conditions. Copyright © 2018, Girma Wolde and Chigigne Adamu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. INTRODUCTION Filed pea (Pasum satrium L.) is one of the most important leguminous crops of the world. It is originated in Mediterranean region of Southern Europe and Western Asia. Currently the crop is growing in many countries including Ethiopia for both human consumption and animal feed (Chandrasekaran et al., 2010). Filed pea is climbing annual legume with weak, vine and relatively seven lent stems. Vines often are 4 to 5 feet long, but when grown alone, filed peas weak steams prevent it from growing more than 1.5 to 2 feet tall. Leaves have two leaflets and tendril. Flowers are white, pink or purple. It has pods Carrey seeds; seeds are rounded and little angular with grayish to brown (green) yellow in color. The root system is relatively shallow and small, but well modulated (Hagedogen, 1986). Filed pea is grown as forage crop for cattle; as green manure crop for soil improvement and as cover crop to reduce soil erosion. Matured seeds are used as whole or split. Seeds are starchy, which can vary from 30 to 50%, but high in fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals and 1 % fat (Mekay, 2001; Chandrasekaran et al., 2010). The major producing countries of filed pea are Russia and China, followed by Canada, Europe, Australia and the USA (Kallo, 1993). *Corresponding author: Girma Wolde, Department of Plant Science, College of Agriculture and Natural Resource, Wolkite University, Ethiopia. The total field pea coverage in Ethiopia is estimated at 214, 253.07 ha with average annual production of 2752 tones with a productivity of 12.85 quintals per hectare (CSA, 2011). However it is lower than the world average in 2011 (FAOSTAT, 2011). According to Munns and Tester (2008) more than 45 million hectares of irrigated land have been damaged by salt worldwide and 1.5 million hectares are taken out of production each year due to high soil salinity. In Africa, 1,899 million hectare of land is affected by salinity (FAO, 2008). In Ethiopia, salt-affected soils are prevalent in the Rift Valley and the lowlands. About, 200 ha of lands of the limited areas of irrigated lands in the rift valley system are abandoned for agricultural crop production every year due to sodicity and associated land drainage problems in the country (Heluf, 1987). The total land area affected by salinity and sodicity in Ethiopia is estimated at 11 million ha (Szabolcs, 1989). The Ethiopian government has plans to introduce and implement large-scale irrigation agriculture to increase agricultural productivity (Mamo et al., 1996). Unless proper management strategies are designed, the prevailing salinity problem in the country is expected to become severe in the years to come (Kin femichael, 2011). Salinity is one of the factors limiting the productivity of crops like field pea, because most of the crop plants are sensitive to salinity caused by high concentrations of salts in the soil (Hasanuzzaman et al., 2013). Seed germination is the first step of plant life, which determines when and where seedling growth begins (Jeannette ISSN: 0976-3376 Asian Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 09, Issue, 02, pp.7565-7569, February, 2018 Available Online at http://www.journalajst.com ASIAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Article History: Received 27 th November, 2017 Received in revised form 08 th December, 2017 Accepted 08 th January, 2018 Published online 28 th February, 2018 Key words: Field pea, Salinity, Germination and Growth rate. Key words: Field pea, Salinity, Germination and Growth rate.