Abstract
Salinity in soil or water in arid and semi arid regions can severely limit crop production, since the high amount of NaCl contributes to specific ion effects of Cl-, Na+ or both, and to antagonistic effects on nutrient elements. Affected by salt stress, most of the cultivated plants do not fully express their growth potential, which lowers their economic value. Crambe (Crambe abyssinica) is an oil plant of the cruciferous family and it is believed that crambe has great potential to figure as raw material for biofuel; however, literature is not abundant about the effects of salinity in crambe production. This work was carried out in order to evaluate the effects on the development and productivity of crambe irrigated with saline waters under greenhouse conditions. Treatments resulted from the combination of two factors: salinity of irrigation water (ECw) in five levels (1.03-control, 2.5, 4.0, 5.5, and 7.0 dS·m-1) and two types of salts (NaCl and NaCl + CaCl2) with three replications, totaling 30 experimental plots. At the end of the experimental period, soil samples from each plot were collected for chemical and salinity of soil saturation extract analyzes. Salt types did not affect plant parameters. However, the salinity levels presented significant effects on the all plant parameters, decreasing their values with the increase of the salt dose. Salinity levels of the solutions used for irrigation in this study affected the growth of plants and grain yield of crambe. Regarding the type of salts, a higher concentration of Na was observed for NaCl solutions at 2.5, 4.0 and 5.5 dS·m-1 salinity levels.
Highlights
Salinity in soil or water is one of the major stresses and especially in arid and semi arid regions; salinity can severely limit crop production
The shoot-root ratio increased with the salinity levels (Figure 1(e)), indicating that crambe plants produced a higher proportion of shoots compared to the roots even under the presence of salts in soil, which means that roots competed effectively for soil nutrients and allowed a better development of plants under salinity conditions
These authors concluded that the two-year greenhouse experiments show that irrigation of crambe with moderate salinities is feasible and classify this crop in the moderately sensitive salt tolerance category
Summary
Salinity in soil or water is one of the major stresses and especially in arid and semi arid regions; salinity can severely limit crop production. Other ions that contribute to soil salinity include SO24− , HCO3− , Ca2+, Mg2+, and, rarely, NO3− or K+ The salts of these ions occur in highly variable concentrations and proportions. Crambe is a low input crop when compared with many other oil crops that can be cultivated This offers potential to reduce the use and environmental burden of fertilizers and water. According to [7], crambe has been chosen as the candidate crop platform for industrial production of wax esters because its oil is not suitable for use in food applications. Nowadays there is a consensus by all major biotech companies that there is a risk in developing industrial feedstock production in the same crop that is used for the food market. Based on the facts described above, in addition to the lack of specific literature about the effects of saline waters used for irrigation on crambe plants, this work was carried out in order to evaluate the effects on the development and productivity of crambe irrigated with saline waters under greenhouse conditions
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