EFFECT OF SALT STRESS ON GROWTH AND YIELD ATTRIBUTES OF MUNGBEAN

A pot experiment was performed at the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) experimental farm, Mymensingh, during the period from 06 October 2003 to 08 January 2004 to observe the response of three mungbean genotypes (Binamoog-4 and twoadvanced line BMX 92007-3 and BMX 94010-11) under different salt stress (control, 3.89 deci-Siemen per metre (ds m -1 ) and 7.82 ds m -1 ). The experiment was laid out following Randomized Complete Block Design where each treatment replicated three times. All morphophysiological characters such as plant height, number of leaf, leaf area, yield contributing characters such as number of pods plant -1 , number of seeds pod -1 , 1000 seed weight, harvest index were reduced with the increase of salinity levels as compared to control. However, the content of Na + in leaves increased with increasing salinity levels. Plant height and yield attributes like number of pods plant -1 , number of seeds pod -1 , 1000 seed weight, harvest index were the highest in advanced line BMX 94010-11 compared to those in Binamoog-4 and advanced line BMX 92007-3. Potassium content in leaves was not varied among the genotypes but leaves of Binamoog-4 contain the highest amount of K + compared to that in BMX 94010-11 and BMX 92007-3. Interaction effect between the genotypes and salinity levels appeared significant for most of the studied characters. From the study it can be opined that salt stress reduced all the parameters under different salinity levels. Again among the genotypes advanced line BMX 94010-11 was found as relatively salt tolerant.