Selection of Salt Tolerant Somaclones for Development of Salt Stress Tolerant Varieties

The experiment were carried out at the farm of Bangladesh Sugarcane Research Institute Ishurdi, Pabna, Bangladesh during 2011-2012 cropping season. The somaclones which were produced in vitro under salinity stress evaluated in the field and after 1st year evaluation those which showed better performance were selected for this experiment to select salinity tolerant line of sugarcane. Sugarcane varieties Isd 28, Isd 35, Isd 36, Isd 37 and Isd 38 were used for selection of salinity tolerant lines. As treatments, salt were used with MS medium for in vitro plantlet regeneration. The selected somaclones were evaluated in 1st and 2nd year and after 1st year evaluation better somaclones were also evaluated under induced salinity stress conditions using different levels of salt (50 mM, 100 mM & 150 mM). Molecular characterizations were also done with the setts of selected somaclones collected from R2 generation. At the highest level of salinity (150 mM) varieties Isd 35 and Isd 37 initiated callus. Under induced salinity stress SC3 of Isd 28, SC3 of Isd 35 and SC2, SC3 of Isd 37 showed better performance in PVC pipe. Those somaclones also performed better in morpho-physiological performance at field condition in two sequential years and also produced polymorphic bands when we characterized with SSR marker. So those lines should be considered as salinity tolerant lines for further study.