Delineating the potential genomic regions and novel candidate genes regulating salinity tolerance in Brassica juncea by GWAS

Elevating salinity lead to reduction in agro-morpho-physiological traits including seed yield. The net photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, water use efficiency and transpiration rate decreased substantially at higher salinity. Production and productivity of B. juncea in India is affected by number of abiotic stresses which causes significant reduction [drought (17%), high temperature (20%) and salinity (50 to 90%)] in production. Mustard is one of the best crop in mitigating the effect of climatic change, greater magnitude of interspecific variation for salinity tolerance, low input requirement, low cost but very healthy oil having good consumer preference and greater scope for improving area and productivity by development of salt tolerant mustard genotype and expansion of cultivation in non-traditional and abiotic stress prone, especially, salt affected area of total mustard growing land. There is a limited availability of genomic information in B. juncea. Our objectives are to highlight the responses of mustard to the saline medium from whole-plant level to molecular level and possibilities to develop genetic and genomic resources for facilitating research on salt tolerance in Indian mustard. Here, we explored the conventional and molecular approached to develop salt tolerant Indian mustard genotypes, delineation of cellular ionic homeostasis mechanism under salt stress with clear knowledge on tissue Na+ and K+ content along with partitioning pattern among different plant parts, identification of physiological and biochemical parameters involved in salt tolerance and molecular mapping of QTLs controlling the agro-morpho-physiological and biochemical parameters involved in salt tolerance.