Abstract
Salt stress is a common agricultural problem that affects both quantity and quality of fruit crops. Responses of rootstocks against salinity possess importance due to demonstrating stress tolerance. Little is known about the early responses of apple plants to short term salinity. In our study, we investigated the physiological responses of an apple plant cv Fuji grafted onto M9 and MM106 rootstocks against 35 mM NaCl stress. After 1 month, salt-treated plants exhibited decreased chlorophyll content (SPAD). Salt stress decreased stomatal conductance values of Fuji/M9 and Fuji/MM106 by 17.0 and 30.1%, respectively when compared with own control. Membrane permeability decreased by 21.3 and 22.0% in salt-treated Fuji/M9 and Fuji/MM106, respectively compared with own control. Reduction due to salt stress in SPAD value, stomatal conductance and leaf relative water content and increase in leaf temperature and membrane permeability were greater in Fuji/MM106 than in Fuji/M9, suggesting that under short term salinity toxic effects of NaCl were less in Fuji/M9.
Highlights
Salinity stress has already become a worldwide environmental problem limiting the growth, development, and yield production in crops
Responses to salinity stress were similar between Fuji apple plants grafted onto two rootstocks
Our study showed that physiological responses in apple plants was affected by salt stress and suggest that the grafted M9 and MM106 rootstocks are not very sensitive to soil salinity if the condition is maintained for a relatively short period
Summary
Salinity stress has already become a worldwide environmental problem limiting the growth, development, and yield production in crops. YYÜ TAR BİL DERG (YYU J AGR SCI) 29 (2): 253-257 Aras and Eşitken / Responses of Apple Plants to Salinity Stress. Decline in plant growth under salt stress has been reported for many fruit species (Aras et al, 2015; Koc et al, 2016a,b; Akçay and Eşitken, 2017; Aras and Eşitken, 2018). Plant responses possess a remarkable importance for screening salt tolerant rootstock. Yin et al (2010), demonstrated that plant growth and relative water content decreased and electrolyte leakage and antioxidant enzyme activities increased in Chinese apple rootstocks under sodium chloride (NaCl) stress. In other study, Fu et al (2013) evaluated physiological responses such as alterations in photosynthesis, membrane permeability, relative water content of some apple biotypes under salt stress. Deleterious effects of salinity were reported in both herbaceous and woody plants (El-Desouky and Atawia 1998; Civelek and Yıldırım, 2019; Kıpçak et al, 2019; Turhan and Kuşçu, 2019)
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