PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE OF QUINOA TO SALT STRESS UNDER SHAD HOUSE CONDITION

Authors

1 Dept. Plant Prod., Fac. Environ. Agric. Sci., Arish Univ., Egypt.

2 Dept. Crop Intensif. Res., Cent. Agric. Res., Giza, Min. Agric. and Land Reclam., Egypt.

Abstract

Quinoa is a halophytic species emerging as a potential new crop in many regions of the world because of the nutritional composition of their seeds. This study has been carried out at the Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Science, Arish University, Egypt during the two successive growing seasons 2016/2017 and 2017/2018. The experiment has been done at the shad net house of the experimental crop farm using quinoa seedlings (one month old), which grow in pots. Seedlings have been irrigated every two days using four treatments of irrigation water (control, 100, 150, 200 mM), where control was tap water 85 mM. It was observed that vegetative parameters of quinoa seedling were significantly decreased with increasing water salinity concentration .The highest value for each of plant height, root length, number of leaves, leaf dry weight, shoot dry weight, root dry weight, water relative content was obtained with low saline control, followed by 100, 150 and 200mM which gave the lowest values in this respect. Concerning growth analysis, the maximum value for each of leaf area duration, relative growth rate, crop growth rate and net assimilation rate was achieved by control, followed by the other respected studied concentration which gave the lowest values. The obtained results cleared that the concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, pigments decreased in plant tissue with increasing water salinity concentration. However, sodium and proline concentrations increased in plant tissue with increasing salinity concentration. It worthy to note that there were significant differences between Giza1 and Giza2 in most studied parameters.

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