Techniques to Determine Salt Tolerance In Safflower.

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a high yielding, drought tolerant oilseed crop grown in arid regions worldwide where high levels of sodium and calcium salt concentrations in the soil and/or irrigation water often limit commercial production.  Calcium salt problem has eliminated crop production on nearly a quarter million acres of marginal land in the Trans-Pecos Region of Texas.  The objective of this study was to modify a hydroponic screening method developed in cotton for screening divergent genotypes of safflower for salt tolerance.  Hydroponics screening can be done year around in a greenhouse setting by exposing seedling to differential concentrations and compositions of salt.  In our initial studies we evaluated 16 accessions of safflower (8 spring genotypes and 8 winter genotypes) to determine their mortality concentration thresholds to sodium salts.  We selected eight lines with differential levels of tolerance that will be used as controls when we screen the USDA-ARS mini-core collection of safflower to determine the range of diversity for tolerance to both calcium and sodium salts.  Tolerance to sodium salt, calcium salt or mixtures of both salts could enhance commercial safflower production both in Texas and globally.