Water shortage leads to a low quality of water, especially saline water in most parts of agricultural regions. This experiment was designed to determine the effects of saline irrigation on sorghum as a moderately salt-tolerant crop. To study salinity effects on photosynthetic pigment attributes including the chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence, an experiment was performed in a climate-controlled greenhouse at two vegetative and reproductive stages. The experimental design was factorial based on a completely randomized design with five NaCl concentrations (control, 50, 100, 150, and 200 mM), two grain and sweet-forage sorghum cultivars (Kimia and Pegah, respectively) and four replications. According to the experimental data, there were no significant differences between two grain and sweet-forage cultivars. Except for 100 and 150 mM NaCl, salinity significantly decreased the chlorophyll index and pigment contents of the leaf, while it increased the chlorophyll-a J Biol Phys (2016) fluorescence characteristics. Although salinity reduced photosynthetic pigments and the crop yield, either grain or sweet-forage cultivars could significantly control the effect of salinity between 100 and 150 mM NaCl at both developmental stages, showing the possibility of using saline water in sorghum cultivation up to 150 mM NaCl.

17There is a renewed interest in boosting farm productivity in the semi-arid Mediterranean 18 agricultural zones of Australia through increased capture and use of solar radiation and soil-19 water by simultaneous growing of two or more species of plants in mixtures. The present 20 study assessed the performance of wheat and chickpea, mixed at half their sole crop 21 populations for their capacity to capture and use solar radiation and soil-water in the 22 drought season of 1994 and close-to-normal rainfall season of 1995 in South Australia. In 23 both years, there was no advantage of mixed crops over wheat grown as a sole crop (wheat-24 s) either in terms of green area index (GAI), fraction of photosynthetically active radiation 25 intercepted by the canopy (i PAR ), dry matter (DM) or grain yield produced. The lack of a 26 yield advantage of mixed cropping was associated with the low yielding capacity of 27 chickpea and its inability to compensate for its reduced population density in the mixture. 28Grain yield for chickpea in the mixed crop (chickpea-m) averaged just 29% that of its sole 29 crop (chickpea-s), whereas wheat grown in mixture (wheat-m) produced 72% the yield for 30 wheat-s. Supplementary irrigation from early spring onwards in 1995 increased yield of 31 chickpea-m by 44% over that of chickpea-s, while wheat-m fell to 65% that of wheat-s. 32Every millimetre of irrigation water increased yield by 10.0, 3.8 and 12.5 kg/ha for wheat-s, 33 mixed crop and chickpea-s, respectively. Mixed cropping did not affect the time taken by 34 either wheat or chickpea to attain maximum growth rate, flowering or maturity. Using the 35 land equivalent ratio (LER) to assess productivity in terms of grain yields for wheat-36 chickpea intercropping produced values of between 1.01 in 1994 and 1.02 in 1995; an LER 37 of 1.10 was obtained with supplementary irrigation in 1995. Mixed cropping did not 38 improve either radiation-use efficiency or water-use efficiency when compared to wheat-s. 39It is concluded that there was no advantage of mixed cropping when based on total biomass 40 or grain yield produced by the crops. 41 42 43

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Mutant-4(M-4) Mutant-7 (M-7)Mutant-9 (M-9) A. Breeding characteristics

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