Abstract
Salinity is one of the most important environmental stresses affecting the growth and yield of the plants. The effect of salicylic acid (SA) on growth, germination, and some physiological traits of bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L.) exposed to salinity was studied in a factorial experiment based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. The experimental treatments were composed of salinity at three levels of 0, 50 and 100 mM and SA priming at three rates of 0, 0.1 and 0.2 mM. The results showed that as salinity was increased, germination and the related traits, seedling growth, and the Hill reaction rate were declined, but mean germination time and cell death were increased. SA application at the rates of 0.1 and 0.2 mM improved these parameters as compared to control. At the salinity levels of 50 and 100 mM, SA rates of 0.2 and 0.1 mM imposed the strongest effect on germination parameters and plant growth. At the salinity level of 100 mM, SA rate of 0.2 mM was more effective on leaf relative water content, seedling fresh weight, root and stem length, and root and stem fresh weight. At different levels of salinity, 0.2 mM SA increased the Hill reaction rate and cell death of bitter vetch. The application of SA under salinity stress for improvement of germination parameters, seedling growth, and physiological traits of bitter vetch could be recommended.
Highlights
Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L) is one of the oldest domesticated plants from the family Fabaceae
A significant change happened in final germination percentage of bitter vetch seeds so that among seeds unprimed with salicylic acid (SA), the highest germination percentage of 48.67% was related to those exposed to 0 mM salinity and the lowest one (46.33%) was obtained from those exposed to 100 mM salinity
The loss of germination percentage with the increase in salinity may be related to the loss of water uptake by seeds under salinity stress, which reduces physiological and metabolic processes so that plants suffer from nutrients unavailability and the germination is impaired (Ashraf and Waheed, 1990)
Summary
Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L) is one of the oldest domesticated plants from the family Fabaceae. Bitter vetch is a very old grain legume in the Mediterranean region whose cultivation dates back to 10 000 years ago. It is grown for grains and dry forage (Abdullah et al, 1999; Sadeghi et al, 2009). Salinity is one of the stresses that limit crop production. Salinity stress occurs when the amount of salts accumulated in the root zone is beyond the tolerance of plants, which disrupts the vital processes of the plant, such as nutrient uptake and mobilization, transpiration, and photosynthesis. Salinity influences the biochemical and physiological processes and the biosynthesis of primary and secondary metabolites of plants (Hendawy and Khalid, 2005). Salinity stress causes the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and increases membrane permeability of the cells; in addition to oxidative damage by ROS, this results in the build-up of some proteins including heat shock proteins, chaperones, and other detoxifying proteins (Sudhakar et al, 2001)
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