| Summary: | Pearl millet is one of the most important cereals grown in drought-prone areas and is the staple grain for million of people inWest Africa and India. Breeding for drought-prone environments is constrained by lack of suitable selection indices ofdrought stress resistance. The present study is conducted to determine the reliability of in vitro screening method forinitiating drought breeding programme. This in vitro screening method proves to be an ideal method for screening large setof germplasm with less efforts accurately and cost effective. This experiment was carried out with a collection of twenty onemillet genotypes including commercial varieties and advance hybrid cultures tested in completely randomized design. Datawere recorded at five different moisture stress levels (-3, -5, -7.5, -10 bars and control) by using polyethylene glycol (PEG)6000 on germination percentage, root length, shoot length, root / shoot ratio and statistically analyzed for significantdifferences. The genotypes recorded significant differences for all traits in response to various moisture stresses. Thegenotype TNBH 0538 gave the good germination percentage, root length, shoot length, and root/shoot ratio as comparedwith commercial cultivars under all five moisture stresses. ICMV- 221 showed highest resistance against moisture stress,while PT6034 showed lowest resistance. TNBH 0642 also gave the better performance under all four moisture levels formost of the traits at seedling stage. The regression studies indicated, the osmotic stress were the most suitable method fordrought tolerance screening owing to their highly significant relationship with declining root length (R2 = 0.991; P < 0.001)and shoot length (R2 = 0.998; P < 0.001). Hence, the system used in this study appeared to be a simple, rapid and costeffective method for screening seedling traits response to water stress condition to improve the drought tolerance in pearlmillet.
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