Kodo millet is the hardiest crop among the small millets. The crop harvested as a cereal in West Africa and in India. Kodo millet is ability to tolerate the biotic and abiotic stresses. The crop is subjected to salinity stress at germination, flowering and grain filling stages which leads to the low yields. Therefore, the best option for crop production, yield improvement under salinity stress is to develop stress tolerant crop varieties. It is important to study the response of Kodo millet varieties at molecular level for better development of salinity tolerant lines.

Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) using a stable reference gene is widely used for gene expression research. For any successful molecular analysis especially for qRT-PCR studies, the extraction of pure RNA is mandatory. we have used LiCl₂ method through which we produced pure RNA for gene expression studies. A total of 19 salt stress responsive gene primers are used.