Growth and Mineral Nutrition in Salt Stressed Guava ( Psidium guajava L.) cv . Allahabad Safeda

Abstract

Guav a cv . Allahabad Safeda w as grown in saline soils and irrigated with the best av ailable w ater -1 -1 + -1 (EC 2.8 dS m ). Based on chemical composition (pH- 7.1, EC - 2.8 dS m , Na - 20.04 meq l and IW IW sodium adsorption ratio- 4.86), irrigation w ater w as categorized as marginally saline. The soil pH 2 -1 w as mostly below 8.5 but mean electrical conductivity (EC ) v alues ranged from 0.5-2 dS m 2 indicating moderate to high salinity in the experimental soil. After one-y ear of experimentation, fiv e plants randomly selected from each treatment and the data w ere recorded. Plant height -1 -1 significantly increased (LSD 5%) with increase in salinity from 0.5 dS m to 1.4 dS m . A similar -1 trend w as noted with respect to stem girth. The av erage plant height at 0.5, 0.9 and 1.4 dS m salinity lev els w as 98.3 cm, 108.3 cm and 123 cm, respectiv ely whereas the corresponding stem girth v alues -1 w ere 2.24 cm, 2.28 cm and 2.46 cm. At 2 dS m salinity ,how ev er , both av erage plant height (94.6 cm) and stem girth (2.24 cm) significantly decreased and w ere found to be comparable to control (0.5 dS -1 + -1 m ) v alues. Plants show ed negligible Na accumulation in leav es up to 1.4 dS m salinity , but -1 + exposure to elev ated salinity (2 dS m ) significantly increased leaf Na (0.16% DW). These data -1 indicated a salinity tolerance (EC )threshold of about 1.5 dS m inguav a cultiv ar Allahabad Safeda.