Effect of Salt Stress on Peruvian Germplasm of Chenopodium quinoa Willd.: A Promising Crop

Soil salinity is a major problem in today's agriculture. Quinoa has become an important crop because it exhibits high levels of salinity tolerance. In addition, its seeds contain an excellent balance of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and proteins for human nutrition. The quinoa germplasm includes almost 2500 accessions, some of which have been tested under salt stress. Here, we report the effect of NaCl on the germination of 182 previously untested accessions. When seeds were irrigated with saline water at 30 dS m(-1) EC, the stress appeared to be too high: all accessions showed less than 60 % germination. In contrast, irrigation with 25 dS m(-1) EC saline water allowed over 60 % germination in 15 accessions. These latter accessions' agricultural traits were then evaluated. The overall coefficients of variation indicated that quinoa genotype and salt treatment dramatically influence root dry mass per plant, but do not noticeably affect the length of the plant's life cycle. Unexpectedly, salt treatment resulted in increased plant height, leaf dry mass and grain yield. Using Euclidean distance for the simultaneous selection of these five agricultural traits, accessions 100, 136, 127 and 105 proved to be the best performing genotypes under salt stress.