role of salt stress on seed germination and growth of sugar beet cultivars

Research Article
Mahdi zare, Mahdi Ghaemi and Khodadad Mostafavi
DOI: 
xxx-xxxx-xxx
Subject: 
science
KeyWords: 
Germination Percentage, Germination Rate, Seedling Dry Weight, Seedling Length
Abstract: 

In this experiment, five sugar beet genotypes inclusive F-20505, H30938, H30939, SBSI-6 and SBSI-9 were evaluated in five levels of salinity treatment (distilled water as control, 4, 8, 12 and 16 dS/m) by using different NaCl concentrations. The results of this study reveal that various concentrations of NaCl had a significant effect on the all measured traits. The differences between the means (Genotypes and salinity stress levels) were compared by Duncan multiple range test. It observed that, in all of genotypes there was a decrease in germination percentage due to salinity stress increment and maximum germination percentage was delayed. Among the sugar beet genotypes, H30939 had the highest germination percentage. In addition, it was clearly determined that there were no statistical differences between measured genotypes at high salinity levels (16 dS/m) for all investigated traits. Cluster analysis was done using the data for all measured traits at the mid highest salt level (12 dS/m), because this salt level was found very effective in discriminating the genotypes. Results of cluster analysis (Ward’s minimum variance method) showed that genotypes H30939 was found to be tolerant, while SBSI-6 and SBSI- 9 sensitive to salt.