Morphophysiological responses of red amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor L.) to osmopriming treatment to overcoming salinity stress

Abstract

Global climate change induced environmental stress such as salinity significantly impact growth and crop productivity. Red amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor L.) is a vegetable commodity that has high nutritional value, but its productivity will decrease when grown in saline area. Seed priming is one of the pre-planting treatment techniques used to increase plant growth under unfavourable conditions. Osmopriming is one of the priming techniques where the seeds will be immersed in a solution with a high osmotic potential, such as PEG (Polyethylene Glycol). The purpose of this study was to determine the morphophysiological response of red amaranth to osmopriming treatment under salinity stress. Complete randomized design was used to arrange this experiment containing two variables including seed osmopriming (0, 5% and 10% of PEG) and salinity stress (0, 50, and 100 mM of NaCl). Morphophysiological parameters were measured including plant height, number of leaves, root length, leaf chlorophyll content, proline content, oxalic acid content and Ca-oxalate crystal density. After seed osmopriming with 10% of PEG 6000 increased plant height, number of leaves and root length of red amaranth Under salinity stress. Chlorophyll content increased while proline, oxalic acid content and Ca-oxalate crystal density decreased on osmopriming with 10% of PEG 6000. Seed osmopriming enhances morphophysiological characters to overcome problems in cultivating of red amaranth on saline area.