Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding
Drought stress is the major production constraint in rainfed
maize. Screening for drought tolerance is severely affected
by the lack of a simple and reliable phenotyping technique.
The objective of this study was to standardize a simple
hydroponic based drought screening technique in maize.
In this context, one week old uniform seedlings of 55 inbreds
and 5 hybrids were transferred to hydroponic solution in
the glass house. The seedlings were allowed to acclimatize
for next one week in hydroponic solution. The drought
stress was imposed by removing seedlings from nutrient
solution and exposed to air for 6 and 4 hours daily for a
period of 5 and 4 consecutive days in hybrids and inbreds,
respectively. Data were recorded on all shoot and root
parameters, and based on stress symptoms, a drought
tolerance score was given to each genotype. The percent
deductions in shoot and root fresh weight from non-stress
to stress ranged from 11.7 to 84.4 and 2.1 to 77.5,
respectively. Six inbred lines, namely, DQL790-4, CML334,
CM140, CML422, CM125 and HKI488 and three hybrids
namely DMRH1306, DMRH1410 and PMH4 were found
drought tolerant. The effectiveness of this screening
technique was compared and confirmed using pots
screening as well as by expression profiling of key
antioxidant genes (Sod2, Sod4, Sod9 and Apx1) playing
role in drought stress tolerance. This phenotyping technique
is very short, low cost and simple which can be utilized in
preliminary drought screening for large set of maize
germplasm and mapping populations.
Keywords: Maize, drought tolerance, hydroponic solution, anti-oxidant genes, expression profiling
Year: 2020
Volume: 80
Issue: 1
Article DOI: 10.31742/IJGPB.80.1.3
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906
Bhupender Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Shankar Lal Jat, Shraddha Srivastava, Tanu Tiwari, Sonu Kumar, Meenakshi, Hans Raj Pradhan, Brijesh Kumar, Garima Chaturvedi, Abhishek Kumar Jha and Sujay Rakshit info_circle
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