Salinity Threshold of Tall Wheatgrass for Cultivation in Coastal Saline and Alkaline Land

Hongwei Li (), Wei Li, Qi Zheng, Maolin Zhao, Jianlin Wang, Bin Li and Zhensheng Li
Additional contact information
Hongwei Li: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Wei Li: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Qi Zheng: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Maolin Zhao: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Jianlin Wang: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Bin Li: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Zhensheng Li: State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-12

Abstract: Tall wheatgrass ( Elytrigia elongata ) has the potential to be utilized on marginal land, such as coastal saline-alkaline soils, to meet rising ruminant feed demand. However, the salinity threshold for cultivation of tall wheatgrass remains unclear, which restricts its extensive application. Here, a tall wheatgrass line, Zhongyan 1, was grown in saline-alkaline soils in the Yellow River Delta region to determine its salinity threshold. The results showed that the soil salinity of AM = 1.23, measured with a PNT3000 activity meter, led to only 5% dead plants of tall wheatgrass. Four grades of seedling plants were classified according to the morphological response of Zhongyan 1 to saline soils. The soil salinity declined while the survival rate and forage yield increased from grade 1 to grade 4 plants. Plant height and dry matter yield were negatively related to soil salinity. When the salinity in the soil depth of 0–10 cm was over 1%, the survival rate of tall wheatgrass declined dramatically with the increase in soil salinity. Under saline-alkaline stress, the plant height during 12–31 May was positively related to forage yield, which can be used as an indicator of productivity. The tall type (70–120 cm) produced 5627.2 kg ha −1 of dry matter, which was 3.32 times that of the dwarf type (20–69 cm). The forage yield of tall wheatgrass in saline-alkaline land was largely affected by the proportion of highly saline soil. Collectively, the soil salinity of 1% at a depth of 0–10 cm and the AM values of 1.23 measured with a PNT3000 activity meter can be used as the salinity threshold for cultivation of tall wheatgrass in coastal saline-alkaline land.

Keywords: tall wheatgrass; salinity threshold; forage yield; coastal grass belt; saline and alkaline land (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/2/337/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/2/337/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:2:p:337-:d:1051362

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().