Abstract
Red clover is highly salt-sensitive plant, especially during germination and early seedling growth stages. The aim of this investigation was to estimate the effects of different saline conditions (0, 50, 100, 150, and 200mM NaCl) on germination and early seedling growth in four red clover varieties (Kolubara, K-32, K-17 and K-39). Germination test was conducted in the laboratory conditions using sterile plastic vessels on filter paper moistened with 10ml of the appropriate salt test solutions. It was observed that the germination energy (GE), germination (G), percentage of dead or infected seeds (DIS), normal seedlings (NS), root length (RL), shoot length (ShL), fresh weight (FW) and dry weight of seedling (DW) and seedling vigor index (SVI) were significantly decreased with increasing concentrations of NaCl in the growing medium. The tested varieties of red clover showed different NaCl tolerance at the seedling stage. Generally, studied red clover varieties are very sensitive to salt, especially K-32 which has the lowest values for GE, G, NS and SVI and highest for DIS. Variety K-17 proved to be a variety that the best tolerates conditions of salt stress because the values for GE, G, NS, RL and SVI were highest. Testing of varieties of red clover in the early seedling growth at different concentrations of NaCl in the growing medium could be helpful in the identification and selection of varieties for cultivation on saline soils.
Highlights
Red clover is the second most important perennial forage legume in Republic of Serbia
Higher salt doses were not used since Nichols et al (2009) have concluded that the G in pasture legumes did not germination on higher NaCl levels
The properties Germination energy (GE), G, dead or infected seeds (DIS), normal seedlings (NS), root length (RL) and Seedling vigor index (SVI) of red clover were significantly affected by variety and NaCl concentration
Summary
Red clover is the second most important perennial forage legume in Republic of Serbia. The soil salinity is one of the important abiotic factors affecting crop production. Salinity resistance of germination seeds of forage rape, berseem clover, alfalfa, and red clover has been shown to be a heritable trait which could be used as an efficient criterion for the selection of salt-resistant populations (Ashraf et al, 1987). Many researchers reported that the highest concentration of NaCl strongly affected germination and growth of seedlings in several species of leguminous fodder crops: Egyptian, red and Persian clovers (Gravandi, 2013), Persian clover (Ates and Tekeli, 2007), strawberry clover (Can et al, 2013), white clover and Egyptian clover (Saberi et al, 2013), alfalfa (Zhanwu et al, 2011), Medicago ruthenica (Guan et al, 2009), yellow sweet clover (Ghaderi-Far et al, 2010) and sainfoin (Majidi et al, 2010)
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