2008 Joint Annual Meeting (5-9 Oct. 2008): Screening for Salinity Tolerance among Falcata Alfalfa Pi's.

Many Western US rangelands are high in salinity; a falcata type alfalfa that would persist in these situations would increase productivity.  Our objective was to use a previously developed greenhouse screening protocol to characterize 32 PI’s from the NPGS system for their relative ability to survive increasing levels of NaCl relative to the alfalfa check cultivars Malone, Mesa Sirsa, Saranac, and Rambler.  Significant variation for survival was observed among entries when overall trial mortality reached 50 (P<0.01) and 75 (P<0.01) %.  At both the 50 and 75 % overall trial mortality two checks ranked 1^st and 2^nd  but were not significantly different than 5 of the PI’s.  This suggests that there is variation for ability to survive saline conditions among the falcata alfalfa PI’s tested.