In vitro Screening of Salt Tolerance in Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Varieties

Salinity is one of the major abiotic constraints that severely affect the productivity of agricultural crops in arid and semiarid regions. In vitro screening of eight potato varieties (Asterix, Cardinal, Challenger, Desiree, Hermis, Kroda, Sh-5 and Sante) was investigated for salt tolerance at 0.0, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 mM NaCl supplemented with MS medium. Kroda emerged as the most salt tolerant variety with the highest plant height (6.5 cm), number of nodes (8.8), fresh shoot weight plant-1 (0.166 g), number of roots (4.6) and root length (2.5 cm) at 60 mM NaCl followed by Sh-5. Desiree and Cardinal were moderately tolerant varieties to NaCl stress. The most sensitive variety Asterix produced minimum plant height (2.7 cm), number of nodes (2.4), number of roots (2.6), root length (0.7 cm), root weight (0.021 g) and shoot weight (0.045 g) at 20 mM NaCl. The most salt sensitive potato varieties evaluated in this study would be used in Agrobacterium-mediated gene transformation of AtNHX1 to improve their tolerance against salinity stress.