The Effect Of Salt Concentration On Growth And Yield Of Two Sorghum Lines (Sorghum Bicolor L. Moench)

Abstract

A nursery experiment was conducted during summer of 2007 at a nursery of Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, at latitude 15I0; 40 َ and longitude 32I0; 32َ to investigate the effects of salt stress on growth and yield of two lines of forage sorghum. The salt levels were: 0Ec (control), 6Ec (20 g NaCl/liter), 8Ec (25g NaCl/liter), and10Ec (30 g NaCl/liter). 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 measured were: plant height (cm), number of leaves per plant, stem diameter (mm), average relative growth rate, and average relative leaf area, and leaf area, fresh and dry weight per plant, in addition to percentage of some elements. The effect of the treatments on plant height was not significant among the salt levels and between genotypes. The interaction was also not significant. KHS gave taller plants at all sampling occasions. There was a significant difference between genotypes on number of leaves per plant at all sampling occasions, while there was no significant difference between salt levels or the interaction. Also, the effect of the genotypes on stem diameter was significant only at 37 and 48 days after sowing, while there was no significant different between salt levels and the interaction at all sampling occasions. Also, there was no significant difference between the two genotypes, salt levels and the interaction on leaf area, fresh and dry weight at all sampling occasions. On the other hand, the effect of the treatments on ash, Na and P was not significant, while the effect of the genotypes and the interaction on K was significant. Average relative growth rate increased with plant age, and KHS line was superior to R5.Average relative leaf area decreased at the end of crop life and R5 genotype obtained higher ARLER that was 3.70 than KHS, which was 3. 40 with the overall mean 3.50