Morphological and Physiological Analysis of Salinity Stress Response of Carob (Ceratonia siliqua L.) in Morocco

Abstract

Background: Salinization usually plays a primary role in soil degradation, which consequently reduces agricultural productivity. Method: In this study, the effects of salinity (0, 40, 80, 120 and 240 mM of NaCl) on growth parameters, chlorophyll, proline content and sugar content of seven populations of carob (Ceratonia siliqua L.), eco-geographical origins different from the collection of four areas of collaboration (Fez, Meknes, Marrakech and Khemisset). Result: The results show that the influence of salt stress on the growth of the vegetative apparatus is visible for concentrations of 120 and 240 mM. Sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration in the medium leads to a reduction in overhead and underground biomass and slow elongation of stems and roots. The influence of salt stress was confirmed by highly positive correlations after analysis of variance to one way. The study also shows that the mean chlorophyll (a+b) of the 7 populations studied responds variably to the intensity of salt stress. She experienced a decrease in function of stress and it is very significantly reduced by the salinity to the NaCl concentration of 240 mM. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that there was a highly significant difference between the average measured chlorophyll content (a+b) during saline stress for 7 carob studied populations. Proline content is an important physiological parameter for studying the behavior of people towards carob salt stress. Conclusion: Species that have shown the most sensitive behavior towards salt on the morpho-physiological react by accumulating proline, by cons, those that have proven tolerant, have a relative stability or low accumulation of their proline content. The same behavior is observed for the leaf level soluble sugar content. The effect of different concentrations of the salt resulted in a highly significant accumulation of the levels of soluble sugars in the leaves of the carob tree populations.