Genetic Advances and Heritability for Different Seedling Traits of Wheat and Maize under Heavy Metal and Salt Stress

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) both are an important cereal crop plants. Both are grown as food and feed for human and livestock. Wheat and maize are highly sensitive to heat, drought, salinity and heavy metal toxicity. For evaluation of genotypes of maize and wheat under heavy metal and salt stress, an experimented was conducted in the greenhouse of Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, The University of Lahore. The treatments of salt and heavy metal for wheat and maize were kept as following: T1: control (normal irrigation condition) T2: 0.5 mM ZnSO4 T3: 1 mM ZnSO4 T4: 0.5 mM NaCl T5: 1 mM NaCl and T6: 20 ml Biogas. It was observed from results that the performance of wheat and maize genotypes were highly variable under heavy metal and salt treatment. The treatments 1 mM ZnSO4 and 0.5 mM NaCl were found as the higher toxic treatments for wheat and maize which were predicted as they may cause to decrease the photosynthetic rate, productivity and growth of plants. It was found from results that maize hybrid 30Y87 performed better under most of the stress treatments as compared with wheat variety Ujala-2016 while the higher genetic advance and heritability were reported for wheat variety which revealed that the wheat variety may be used to grow under salt and heavy metal stress conditions