Saloomeh Taheri; Taher Barzegar; Vali Rabiei; Hossein Rabi Angoorani
Abstract
Salinity is one of the most important environmental stresses that affect plant growth. In order to study the effect of Salicylic Acid (SA) on some physiological characteristics of basil under salinity conditions, the experiment was set out as a factorial design in the base of RCBD with three replications. ...
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Salinity is one of the most important environmental stresses that affect plant growth. In order to study the effect of Salicylic Acid (SA) on some physiological characteristics of basil under salinity conditions, the experiment was set out as a factorial design in the base of RCBD with three replications. Treatments consisted of four NaCl salinity levels (0, 50, 100, 150 mM), salicylic acid at three levels (0, 0.25, 0.5 mM) and two cultivars of basil (purple and green). Results showed that salinity significantly decreased amount of chlorophyll, carotenoid and leaf relative water content. Application of SA increased amounts of chlorophyll, carotenoid and leaf relative water content. The amount of proline, stomatal resistance and electrolyte leakage in leaves increased significantly under salinity condition and decreased with treatment of salicylic acid. The highest amount of chlorophyll b (0.617 mg/g FW-1) and the minimum electrolyte leakage (30.4 percent) was observed with application of 0.5 mM SA under of 0 mM NaCl concentration in green and purple basil cultivars, respectively. Also, the maximum content of proline (11.4 µg/g FW-1) and the lowest rate of stomatal resistance (7.8 s/cm-2) were obtained under 150 mM NaCl in purple and green basil cultivars, respectively. According to the results, application of salicylic acid can be proposed to improve plant growth under salinity conditions.