Abstract
A nursery experiment was conducted during the summer of 2007 at the nursery of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, latitude 15° 40' and longitude 32° 32', to investigate the effect of salt concentration on growth and yield of two lines of forage sorghum. The salt levels were: the control that no salt was added to the tap water, adding 40 gramme of NaCl to a liter of tap water to give an electric conductivity (E. C.) of 6 dsm<sup>-1</sup>, adding 50 gramme of NaCl to a liter of tap water to give E. C. of 8 dsm<sup>-1</sup> and adding 60 gramme of NaCl to a liter of tap water to give E. C. of 10 dsm<sup>-1</sup>. The two lines of sorghum were R5 and KHS. The treatments were randomly assigned in a Factorial experiment as completely randomized design with ten replications. The growth parameters that were measured included: stem diameter (mm), average relative growth rate (ARGR), and average relative leaf area rate (ARLAR), dry weight per plant, in addition to the percentage of some elements. The effect of the treatments on stem diameter was significant regarding the two selected genotypes only at 37 and 48 days after sowing, while there was no significant difference between salt levels and the interaction at all sampling occasions. On the other hand, the effect of the treatments on ash, Na<sup>+</sup> and P was not significant, but the effect of the genotypes and the interaction on K<sup>+</sup> was significant. Average relative growth rate increased with plant age, and KHS line was superior to R5. Average relative leaf area rate decreased at the end of crop life and R5 genotype obtained higher ARLAR that was 3.7 than KHS, which were 3. 4 with the overall mean 3.5.
Highlights
Salinity and sodicity problems in agriculture have an ancient history, and presently have become a very cumbersome problem in agricultural and farming activities These problems are especially of great concern for countries that their economies rely to a great extent on agriculture, and according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, total salt-affected area of the world has been estimated to be over 800 million ha, 80.5 million ha in Africa (Pessarakli and Szabolcs, 2011)
KHS line was more tolerant than R5, and it had a higher Average Relative Growth Rate (ARGR) at the highest salt levels
This was with an agreement with Allen et al, (1994) that mentioned that salinity might cause reduced Adenosine Tri Phosphate (ATP) and growth regulators
Summary
Salinity and sodicity problems in agriculture have an ancient history, and presently have become a very cumbersome problem in agricultural and farming activities These problems are especially of great concern for countries that their economies rely to a great extent on agriculture, and according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, total salt-affected area of the world has been estimated to be over 800 million ha, 80.5 million ha in Africa (Pessarakli and Szabolcs, 2011). It is estimated that 20% of all cultivated land and nearly half of irrigated land is salt-affected, greatly reducing yield well below the genetic potential (Jenks and Hasegawa, 2005). Ahmed and Ahmed (2007) recorded that the information on the subject has developed appreciably in recent years, and the problem essentially lies in our inability to predict the rate of plants stress and its effect on high levels of plant organization from the physiological perturbations caused by salinity. Salt stress causes a water deficit, ion toxicity, and nutrient deficiencies, and these effects decrease the growth and yields of plants and in extreme cases can lead to plant death. As Owens (2001) illustrated, the excess salinity in soil has devastating effects plant growth, reducing
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