Abstract

 The success of programmes improving barley performance under abiotic stress must go through an understanding of mechanisms developed by the plant to counteract this stress. Our study fits into this framework. It aims to evaluate six barley genotypes from the MENA region, treated with two salinity levels: 1.2 and 14 dS/m. Three genotypes are salt-tolerant, and three are sensitive. They were grown under a controlled environment and in 40L PVC tubes using sand and perlite as substrate. The evaluation was based on 15 morpho-physiological parameters related to water, ion content, temperature, and chlorophyll fluorescence. The results confirm the existence of genetic variability for salt tolerance. Two Tunisian landraces ‘Suihli’ and ‘Ardhaoui’ and Omanis landraces ‘Batini 100/1B’ were not affected. Conversely, ‘ICARDA20’ and ‘Barley Mednine’ appeared to be sensitive to salt stress with a maximum reduction of 35% for improved genotype ‘Konous’. Results also show that salt tolerance in barley cannot be exclusively attributed to a single mechanism. All studied parameters significantly (p < 0.001) contributed to it. However, Stepwise regression revealed that plant water status expected by RWC is the key for salinity tolerance as well as a positive effect of K+ content, Fm/Fv, and leaf Temperature on proper water status. The results highlight the effeteness of one visual trait, the salinity damage index (DI), to estimate barley tolerance. Indeed, a strong correlation was observed between DI and the biomass reduction (P < 0.001, r2=0.96). In addition, correlation analyses showed that all parameters were inversely correlated with the DI.

Keywords: Salinity; Barley; Morpho-Physiological Parameters Traits; Tolerance; Damage Index

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Citation

Citation: Zied Hammami., et al. “The Arsenal of Morphological and Physiological Mechanisms Adopted by Barley (Hordeum vulgare. L) to Face Salt Stress Damage". Acta Scientific Agriculture 4.7 (2020): 92-101.

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Copyright: © 2020 Zied Hammami., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.