article · Frontiers in Agronomy
Cumin establishment in arid and semi-arid regions frequently suffers from high temperatures and soil salinity during germination. Testing nine distinct cumin accessions under laboratory conditions revealed significant differences in environmental tolerance. Germination was highest under cool alternating temperatures of 10/0 °C and 20/10 °C, but declined sharply at 30/15 °C and failed completely at 40/25 °C. Exposure to increasing salt concentrations also reduced overall germination, which dropped from over 80 percent in control conditions to 44.1 percent at 200 millimolar sodium chloride. However, individual accessions displayed contrasting resilience. Accession C29 demonstrated remarkable tolerance, maintaining 78 percent germination and high seedling vigour under severe salinity stress, while accession C02 fell to under 20 percent. Accession C27 also retained moderate performance. These findings identify specific genetic lines suited for further screening, though soil-based and combined-stress trials remain necessary.
Cumin is a valuable crop commonly grown in arid and semi-arid environments where high soil salinity and elevated temperatures threaten seedling establishment. Identifying specific accessions capable of germinating under severe salt stress provides plant breeders and agricultural researchers with viable genetic material to improve crop resilience and ensure reliable establishment under challenging growing conditions.
This research represents early-stage laboratory screening of plant genetic resources. The identified salt-tolerant accessions, notably C29 and C27, could be used by commercial seed breeders and agricultural development programmes seeking to develop cumin varieties for saline soils. Real-world commercial use is distant, as the accessions require subsequent factorial testing under combined stresses, physiological analysis, and validation in field soils to confirm performance outside Petri dishes.
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Cumin ( Cuminum cyminum L.) establishment in arid and semi-arid systems can be limited during germination by thermal and saline stress, yet accession-level variation remains poorly characterized. This study aimed to quantify germination and early-vigor responses of nine cumin accessions to temperature and NaCl and to identify material suitable for stress screening. Temperature and salinity were evaluated in independent completely randomized experiments with four replicates of 50 seeds per accession × treatment combination. Accessions were exposed to four alternating temperature regimes (10/0, 20/10, 30/15 and 40/25 °C) or five NaCl concentrations (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 mM). Final germination percentage (FGP), mean germination time (MGT), coefficient of variation of germination time (CVt), and germination index (GI) were evaluated using Petri-dish replicates. Seedling vigor index (SVI) was retained as a descriptive supporting metric because the six seedling measurements per accession × NaCl combination could not be linked retrospectively to individual Petri-dish replicates. Mean FGP was 96.3% at 10/0 °C and 94.4% at 20/10 °C, declined to 80.3% at 30/15 °C, and was 0% at 40/25 °C. Under salinity, mean FGP was 81.5% in the control, 90.8% at 50 mM, 87.5% at 100 mM, 68.2% at 150 mM and 44.1% at 200 mM. At 200 mM, C29 retained 78.0% FGP and GI 2.9, whereas C02 retained only 19.5% FGP; C27 retained 57.5% FGP. Descriptive SVI was also highest for C29 at 200 mM (456.9). The high descriptive mean SVI at 150 mM (396.7 versus 303.6 in the control) reflected accession-specific seedling-length responses and should not be interpreted as a statistically tested stimulatory salinity effect. C29 and, secondarily, C27 are promising candidates for further validation. Because temperature and salinity were tested separately and no physiological assays were performed, combined-stress mechanisms and field tolerance require factorial and soil-based confirmation.
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DOI: 10.3389/fagro.2026.1889259
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