Relative Salt Tolerance of Four Herbaceous Perennial Ornamentals

Abstract

Salt tolerant ornamental plants can be irrigated with alternative water sources that are typically saline as a sustainable practice for urban landscaping, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. However, the salt tolerance of many ornamentals is not known. An eight-week greenhouse experiment was conducted to assess the relative salt tolerance of four perennial ornamentals, ‘Angelina’ (Sedum rupestre), ‘Autumn Joy’ (S. telephium), ‘Blue Spruce’ (S. reflexum), and ‘Blue Daze’ (Evolvulus glomeratus). The plants were grown in pots with potting mix substrate and irrigated with control or saline solutions. The electrical conductivities (EC) of the saline solutions were 5.0 and 10.0 mS/cm. Data collected included relative shoot, root, and total dry weight (DW), visual score, shoot tissue concentrations of Na+, Cl−, K+, and Ca2+, and the K+/Na+ ratio. There were significant differences in treatment and varieties for all response variables, and some interactions were also significant, indicating different responses to salinity for the four varieties. Shoot, root, and total DW decreased with increasing salinity for all varieties. Visual score was highest in Autumn Joy and Blue Spruce when treated with EC5 and EC10 and lowest in Angelina and Blue Daze, the latter of which showed symptoms of moderate foliar damage including leaf necrosis, or “burn”, due to salt stress. The concentrations of Na+ and Cl− in the shoot tissue increased with increasing salinity while K+ and Ca2+ and the K+/Na+ ratio tended to decrease. Of the four varieties of herbaceous perennial ornamentals evaluated in this study, Autumn Joy and Blue Spruce were considered the most relatively salt tolerant while Angelina and Blue Daze were least tolerant.

Alleviative effects of chitosan or humic acid on Vitex trifolia ‘Purpurea’ grown under salinity stress

“…In both seasons, raising salinity levels from 1000 to 2500 or 5000 ppm caused steady significant reduction in all of tested growth parameters compared to the control plants. These results are similar to findings of various studies (Farahat, et al, 2013;Breś et al, 2016;Ashour and El-Attar 2017;Ashour and Abdel Wahab, 2017;García-Caparrós and Lao, 2018;Hooks and Niu, 2019;García-Caparrós, et al 2020) who reported reductions in growth traits of ornamental plants due to negative impact of salt stress. Effect of bio-stimulators treatments Data in Table 2, 3, and 4 also revealed that vegetative growth attributes of Vitex trifolia 'Purpurea' plants were dramatically affected by foliar application of the biostimulators treatments.…”

“…In recent study (García-Caparrós et al, 2020) reported decrease in total carbohydrates content in response to salt stress. Further, the reduction in K + and Ca 2+ % is in harmony with that recorded by García-Caparrós and Lao (2018); Hooks and Niu (2019). In the present study the obtained reduction of K + and Ca+ 2 % in leaves as a result of salt stress may be due to physical and chemical similarities between K + and Na + and the tendency of Na + to compete with K + for major binding sites, including control of enzymatic activity which occurs at unfavorable cytosolic K + /Na + ratios.…”

“…In the present study the obtained reduction of K + and Ca+ 2 % in leaves as a result of salt stress may be due to physical and chemical similarities between K + and Na + and the tendency of Na + to compete with K + for major binding sites, including control of enzymatic activity which occurs at unfavorable cytosolic K + /Na + ratios. The inhibition in Ca +2 uptake is due to the opposite effect between Ca 2+ and Na + ions, that affects membrane properties due to displacement of membrane-associated Ca 2+ by Na + which leading to degradation of membrane integrity and selectivity (García-Caparrós and Lao, 2018;Hooks and Niu, 2019).…”

Tolerance of Three Quinoa Cultivars (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) to Salinity and Alkalinity Stress During Germination Stage

“…Studies, have shown that quinoa can tolerate moderate (150 mM NaCl) to high levels (750 mM NaCl) of salinity [15]. Moreover, the ability of germination and seedling establishment under saline conditions of quinoa plants is dependent on the cultivar [37,38]. In our experiments we compared the tolerance and the ability of three Denmark quinoa cultivars to adapt to salt and alkali stress taking into account the germination rates and we correlated it with the proline production.…”

Gas Exchange and Mineral Nutrition of 12 Viburnum Taxa Irrigated with Saline Water

“…For example, Delosperma cooperi (hardy ice plant) was determined to exclude Na + in its shoots effectively and tolerate high Clin plant cells (Niu and Rodriguez, 2006). Sedum telephium (orpine) treated with saline solutions accumulated high K + that may associate with osmotic adjustment (Hooks and Niu, 2019). Another study found that leaf K + concentration of Aloe vera (barbados aloe) and Gazania rigens (syn.…”