Effect of salicylic acid on alleviation of salt stress on growth and some physiological traits of wheat

Abstract

To evaluate the effect of salt stress and salicylic acid application on growth and yield component traits of wheat, an experiment was conducted in factorial based on RCBD design with 3 replications in research farm (green house condition) of University of Tehran (Karaj-Iran) during 2010-11. Salt stress factor including three levels (control, salt stress with Nacl 4 ds/m and Nacl 8 ds/m) and acid salicylic (application and none application). The experiment was carried out on two variety of wheat, separately. The results indicated that maximum height was achieved in control × SA none application treatment and minimum height was achieved in Nacl8 ds/m × SA none application treatment. Also SA application increased number of grain in spike. SA application alleviated destructive effect of salt stress. The results indicated that interaction effect of salt stress × SA had significant effect (p ≤ 0.01) on Tabasi variety but had not significant effect on Arvand variety on total chlorophyll and relative water content traits. It can be concluded that foliar application of wheat cultivar plants with salicylic acid stimulate the growth of wheat plants via the enhancement of the biosynthesis of photosynthetic pigments; improved relative water content, decreasing of organic solutes (proline) and thus salicylic acid treatment improved wheat growth especially on Tabasi variety.