The Role of Presoaking in Hydrogen Peroxide and their Involvement in Salt Tolerance in Wheat Genotypes

The studies was conducted to compare two wheat genotypes (Inqalab and Khirman) for salinity tolerance under H2O2 seed soaking (0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 μM concentrations); inducing salinity by 100 mM NaCl and the effects were compared by H2O water treatment. The data showed H2O2 levels under H2O vs NaCl treatment in genotype Inqalab and Khirman showed, seed emergence, plant height, leaves plant-1, tillers plant-1, grains plant-1, grains weight plant-1 and shoot biomass plant-1 improves germination, and the germination increases with increasing H2O2 concentration. The H2O2 treatment tends to cause plants to be slightly larger; they were slightly taller and had more leaves. These differences were statistically significant, but were quite small. Similarly, H2O2 treated plants produced the same number of tillers as controls. However, the data suggested that more of the tillers in treated plants go on to produce spikes, because spike number was significantly greater in treated plants. As a result, seed weight was also significantly increased by H2O2 treatment. Regardless of salinity stress, H2O2 seed treatment improved plant yield. Other details for grain weight, Inqalab had higher yield than Khirman and H2O2 treatment increased yield for both varieties, but the effect was greater in Inqalab. It could be seen that for grain weight, salt reduced yield in Inqalab when there were no H2O2 treatment, but treatment tends to minimize the effect of salt. That did not happen in Khirman. H2O2 seed treatment seemed to protect the salt-sensitive genotype, Inqalab, against yield reductions caused by salinity, but had limited effect on Khirman. Individual effects of H2O2 and salt on growth and yield indicated that overall, H2O2 increased growth and yield, while salinity decreased it. However, the increase in yield after H2O2 treatment, even under well-watered conditions was very interesting. The most beneficial effects were seen around 60 μM H2O2, with yield reducing again in the plants with the highest levels of H2O2 treatment and results concluded that H2O2 treatment improved germination, and increased with increasing H2O2 concentration.